Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

School Transport

Mr. Hicks: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what provision was made in the rate support grant settlement in so far as it related to education with regard to firm proposals to alter the basis of the provision of school transport; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Cryer: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what provision was made in the rate support grant for a nationwide system of school transport based on universal single charges which would eradicate the anomalies and injustices of the present system.

The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Miss Margaret Jackson): None, Sir. These issues are still under consideration.

Mr. Hicks: Does not the hon. Lady agree that poorer counties such as Cornwall tend to be the rural counties and that it is in those counties that the problems of school transport are greatest? If she will not help through the provision of additional rate support grants, when will she announce to the House her proposals for the reorganisation of school transport?

Miss Jackson: I cannot give the hon. Gentleman a date. Although I recognise that counties such as Cornwall have a particular problem, it can often be just as acute in inner cities, particularly where

concessionary fares for school children have been withdrawn. It is a problem of family poverty, perhaps even more than local authority poverty.

Mr. Cryer: I know that my hon. Friend has done a lot of work on this subject. Can she indicate when she expects to implement the Local Authorities Management Services and Computer Committee report based on the four experimental areas? Does she accept that where a Tory-controlled local authority, such as Bradford, makes an arbitrary and harsh application of new rules concerning distance, it often causes great hardship and difficulty for parents? Does she agree that the implementation of a flat fare scheme would be much fairer and that that is something that should be considered for application as soon as possible?

Mr. Speaker: Order. Will the Minister please try to answer only one of the hon. Gentleman's three questions?

Miss Jackson: Thank you for your guidance, Mr. Speaker. We are considering the basis of the flat fare scheme, but I cannot give my hon. Friend a date because there are more complications than we had feared. We are very anxious to remove the present anomalies and to see that parents cease to suffer as they are at present.

Mr. Stoddart: Have we not now reached the situation where, nationally, there should be a free transport system for children going to school? After all, parents are required by law to send their children to school and it costs many of them very dearly.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is making an argument in support of his question.

Mr. Stoddart: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker. Will my hon. Friend consider that aspect?

Miss Jackson: I am always willing to consider suggestions from my hon. Friend, but LEAs already spend £100 million a year on school transport even under the present system. I fear that a totally free system is beyond us at the moment.

Cultural Centre

Mrs. Renée Short: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science


what proposals she has to build a cultural centre in London.

The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. Gordon Oakes): My right hon. Friend has no such plans. The many cultural facilities in London are continually being augmented, for example by extensions to the national museums, the new National Theatre and the proposed British Library.

Mrs. Short: Will my hon. Friend consider staking a claim for about 1 per cent. of the North Sea oil revenue in order to develop the arts in this country? Will he also launch a design competition for a cultural centre similar to the Pompidou centre in Paris, which, incidentally, was designed by a British firm?

Mr. Oakes: No. The policy of the Government, which has general agreement throughout the House, is that more facilities should be provided in the English regions and in Scotland and Wales. I remind my hon. Friend of the distinguished report of the committee over which she presided—the Labour Party NEC arts study group—which suggested that community centres' design and facilities should be determined by the needs of the communities they serve.

Mr. Marten: Will the hon. Gentleman resist suggestions for a cultural centre, which is bound to give rise to a group of intellectual snobs judging what should go on in it? Will he also remember that Adolf Hitler had a cultural centre and what a mess he made of that?

Mr. Oakes: I do not agree with what the hon. Gentleman said, but London is very well provided with cultural centres and the rest of the country needs considerable assistance.

Schools (Health and Safety)

Mr. Watkinson: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she remains satisfied with the application of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act to schools.

Miss Margaret Jackson: My right hon. Friend believes that it is right that staff and pupils in all educational establishments should have the same protection as other people covered by health and safety legislation.

Mr. Watkinson: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Is she aware that there is much confusion in education circles about the working of this Act? If there is a breach of the Act, who ultimately is responsible? Is it the county or the teachers? Is she aware that there are acute problems, particularly with laboratory stores in schools, surrounding the provisions of the Act?

Miss Jackson: I shall write to my hon. Friend on the question of where responsibility ultimately lies. I am a little surprised to hear him say that there are great problems already, because the only regulations which have been implemented so far are those which deal with safety representatives and committees. We are only just beginning an inspection to see what further work is still needed. It is too early to make judgments about the implications.

Squirrels Heath Infant School, Romford

Mr. Neubert: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether Squirrels Heath infant school, Romford, qualifies as substandard by the definition used to determine the 1978–79 school building allocation for improvement and replacement projects.

Miss Margaret Jackson: In allocating the 1978–79 school building programme, account was taken of the number of pupils in pre-1903 primary schools and in pre-1919 secondary schools. Once the allocation is made, it is for the authority to decide which projects to undertake. The use of the pre-1903 criteria, therefore, in no way prevents an authority from deciding to replace a post-1903 school, such as the Squirrels Heath infant school, if it considers that such a school should have priority.

Mr. Neubert: Whatever the Department's definition, will the Minister accept that all who are associated with Squirrels Heath infants' school—parents, staff, governors, teaching associations and non-teaching unions—agree that the school's facilities are inadequate and that there is serious and potentially dangerous overcrowding? In those circumstances why should not a new infants school be included in next year's allocation for replacement projects?

Miss Jackson: I am aware that there is concern at Squirrels Heath. I am also aware that the local authority has already agreed to undertake some work—for example, to improve the toilets and to install a fire alarm system. The school is scheduled for replacement in 1981. That was before the recent announcement of an extra building allocation. Perhaps the local authority will feel able to bring the project forward, but that is a matter for the authority.

16-plus Examinations

Mr. Whitney: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science in any common examination system to replace GCE O-level and CSE, how many subjects are likely to require alternative papers.

The Secretary of State for Education and Science and Paymaster General (Mrs. Shirley Williams): The Waddell report —Cmnd. 7281—concluded that on present evidence alternative papers would be needed in a number of important subjects such as mathematics and modern languages. The exact forms that examinations might take will depend on the further development work needed, which may produce additional evidence. The new central co-ordinating body will be expected to develop national criteria to ensure that alternative papers are used where necessary.

Mr. Whitney: I understand that six or seven alternative papers might be needed in the common system. If that is so, how can the Secretary of State defend the suggestion that the common system, which poses such a threat to education standards, will remove the problem of the 64,000 children, about whom the Secretary of State has spoken so often, who have the dilemma of choosing between the present O-levels and CSE?

Mrs. Williams: The hon. Member knows more about the matter than I do, for the straightforward reason that no studies have taken place on the different subjects. Therefore, it is impossible for the hon. Member to state that there will be alternative papers for any given number of subjects. Even where there are alternative papers, the great advantages of a substantial part of the syllabus being in common will accrue to all children.

That means that it will be more possible for teachers to teach to children's capacities rather than to a syllabus.
The hon. Member shakes his head, but he never listens closely to the evidence. I remind him that the County Councils Association has again made it clear that it supports this examination in principle. Only yesterday, the CBI told me that it had been misunderstood and that it was still in support of the examination in principle.

Mr. Christopher Price: When the studies progress and the new boards are formed, to whom will the amalgamated boards be responsible? Will they be responsible to the Secretary of State, the universities or the local authorities?

Mrs. Williams: The boards will remain independent. However, unlike the present position, there will be a monitoring body —the national co-ordinating body—on which employers, further education interests, teachers, parents and others will be represented. None of those representatives will have an overall majority.

Mr. Carlisle: Does the right hon. Lady agree that there is a great distinction between a common examination system and a common examination paper? Will she accept that in any changes that she might recommend there must be three clear essentials? First, there should be different papers to test the different abilities of different children. Secondly, the nationally recognised standard of the GCE O-level should not be reduced in any way. Thirdly, to achieve that end the papers must be tested externally.

Mrs. Williams: On all three counts I am sure that the hon. and learned Member will accept that our proposals are more satisfactory than the present situation. The Waddell committee found that in some subjects a common examination might be appropriate. It recommended not a common examination but a common examining system. I agree that those are two different matters.
The hon. and learned Member asked about GCE and CSE. The grades will be equivalent directly to the grades in the existing examinations. There is no question of standards being altered. It is an advance that we are to have a national co-ordinating body with responsibility for


ensuring that the whole examination system is monitored. That is a substantial guarantee, which does not exist today.

Mr. Gwilym Roberts: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the key to the situation is that as far as possible there should be common syllabuses in the subjects, thus avoiding the segregation that takes place at an early age? Does she agree that there will be no real progress in this direction unless she is prepared to sort out the existing boards and impose her new structure on them?

Mrs. Williams: My hon. Friend will be aware that I have said that each regional body will include a GCE board and a CSE board. I hope that we can gain the advantages of both systems for the whole examining system.
There is no doubt in my mind that we shall be able to pursue a common syllabus for many children. Children will not have to make the embarrassing choice of choosing one syllabus or another, thereby often damaging their prospects.

Speech Impairment (Remedial Lessons)

Mr. Edwin Wainwright: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many teachers are qualified to give remedial lessons to children who are suffering from various forms of speaking difficulties in the junior and secondary schools, respectively, in each of the education authorities in the Yorkshire and Humberside region.

Miss Margaret Jackson: There is at present no requirement for teachers who work with pupils suffering from impairment of speech to possess an additional qualification. The needs of these children are usually met jointly by teachers and speech therapists.
The report of the Warnock committee, which is now the subject of widespread consultation in the education service and elsewhere, recommends specialised initial and in-service training for teachers of pupils with various special educational needs.

Mr. Wainwright: When shall we treat the problem of children with speech difficulties with the seriousness that it deserves? Is my hon. Friend aware that the previous Government refused to accept

Professor J. Tizard's report and that the impression throughout the country is that this Government are not taking the Warnock report seriously? When is my hon. Friend going to do something about it? Is it not society's duty to enable each child to benefit to his or her limits from the education system?

Miss Jackson: I certainly accept my hon. Friend's last contention. He is dealing with two different questions. Much work has been done for children with speech difficulties in the last year or so. More work has been done than before. There is an inspectorate's survey. A number of new schools and units are being opened to help children with those problems. More speech therapists are employed today than in the past. The work is continuing.
The Tizard report deals mainly with children who have dyslexia. The report argues that such an affliction does not exist. We are conducting consultations on the Warnock report and we hope to have replies to it by February. We hope to proceed with speed, but we are anxious not to take fundamental decisions too quickly.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Does the Under-Secretary of State admit that there are grave problems within our education system in dealing not only with young people with speech difficulties but with other handicapped groups including gifted children? Does she accept that too few teachers are able to identify the problems sufficiently early? Will the Government take steps to improve the education system and the identification of gifted young people and other handicapped children so that attention can be paid to them earlier?

Miss Jackson: The hon. Gentleman must acknowledge that we are now doing far more for children with all categories of handicap than in the past. We are also realising more and more clearly the difficulties of gifted children and we are seeking to help them. In all these areas a great deal of additional work is taking place. Courses are being made available by the Department and work is being undertaken by the inspectorate. I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's contention that there is a great lack of provision or effort in the area to which he has drawn


attention. I remind him that the fundamental point is made in the Warnock report that there is a continuum of difficulty and that it is not a good idea to single out children into specific groups and to try to teach them in those groups. That is what some who talk about gifted children seem sometimes to want.

Mr. Banks: Does the hon. Lady agree that a high proportion of children with speaking difficulties suffer those difficulties because of earlier undetected hearing problems? Will she instigate steps to ensure that pupils entering primary schools are given hearing tests?

Miss Jackson: I am aware that sometimes that is the position. The hon. Gentleman will probably know that the Warnock report recommends that at the earliest possible age before primary school there should be a proper system of assessment for every child to detect every degree of handicap.

Parental Choice

Mr. Peter Bottomley: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she will make a statement on parental choice of schools.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: I have nothing to add to what I said in the debate on Second Reading of the Education Bill on 5th December.

Mr. Bottomley: Would the right hon. Lady object if the ILEA decided to admit the outstanding 12 children to Eltham Green school?

Mrs. Williams: That is a matter for the Inner London Education Authority, but it is my understanding that parents of 99 children asked for that school as their first choice. The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that it would be impossible to meet the first choice of all those parents.

Mr. Thorne: Will my right hon. Friend ensure that the parents of children attending the Liverpool Paddington comprehensive school are protected against the plans of local Tories and Liberals to demolish that school?

Mrs. Williams: I think that my hon. Friend will know that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State has already

seen a deputation on that matter and that I am shortly to do so.

Mr. Beith: Does the right hon. Lady agree that local authorities already have sufficient powers under the present law to limit the ability of parents to choose schools? Should not any legislative change be to tip the balance in favour of parents?

Mrs. Williams: I am convinced that the proposals in the Education Bill set a new balance. They give additional rights to parents of a sort that parents have never had before, especially the right to information and the right for every parent to be asked his or her preference. The hon. Gentleman must appreciate that in a situation in which the school population has fallen by 25 per cent. it is not surprising that local authorities have said that they must have power gradually to phase certain schools out of the system. However, I feel sure that they will always consider the views of the local people.

Mr. Forman: Will the right hon. Lady take advantage of the unduly long Christmas Recess to study carefully the excellent remarks of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) and my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North (Dr. Boyson) when speaking from the Opposition Front Bench on the Second Reading of the Education Bill? Will she try to satisfy herself that the truth is that the Bill in the name of extending parental choice is in danger of restricting it? In Committee in the new year will she bring forward proposals to strengthen real parental choice?

Mrs. Williams: No. I have studied most carefully the remarks made by the hon. Gentleman's colleagues from the Opposition Front Bench on Second Reading of the Education Bill. The hon. Gentleman must take on board the reasons that have motivated local authorities, including those dominated by his party, to suggest time and again that, if we are to have a reasonable control of the education system, and if we are to meet as far as possible parents' wishes and protect the accountability of the system to the taxpayer and the ratepayer, there is no alternative to the proposals that we have put forward.

Mr. Grocott: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the complete contempt for parental choice in any respect that is being shown by the Conservative-controlled Staffordshire county council, especially for parents who would prefer their children not to be educated at primary schools by means of the initial teaching alphabet? Does she agree that where there is room in other schools the parents of those children should, as far as possible, be given the option of going to schools where that method is not used?

Mrs. Williams: I know that my hon. Friend has written to me on that matter. I thank him for his letter. My view is clearly and strongly that where parental wishes can be met they must be met for all parents and not merely for the minority, which I believe to be the main concern of Opposition Members.

Dr. Boyson: Is the right hon. Lady aware that we agree with the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) that the new Education Bill is likely to limit parental choice and not increase it, especially on two grounds? First, does she agree that it wipes out the right embodied in the London Government Act 1963 for children to cross boundaries without any difficulty so that parents may choose whatever school they want for their children, often of a denominational nature? Secondly, if power is given to local authorities to change the intakes of all their schools each September, will not some authorities try to keep open unpopular schools by that method? Will they not direct children to those schools who do not want to go to them while there are real vacancies in other schools that are popular in the neighbourhood?

Mrs. Williams: I think that the hon. Gentleman is pushing at an open door. He knows that on Second Reading of the Education Bill I made it clear that if there were any limitations of the sort that he has suggested as a result of the clause dealing with the London Government Act they would be amended, as would clause 11(5). I say to the hon. Gentleman loudly and clearly that in my view the Opposition have continually pressed for such things as parental preferences and parental information only since they became the Opposition. I wonder why they never did anything

about those issues during the period that they were in office.

16 to 19-year-olds

Mr. Haselhurst: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what representations she has received about the establishment of a coherent programme of education and training for 16 to 19year-olds; and if she will make a statement.

Mr. Oakes: My right hon. Friend has received representations from the local authority associations and a variety of professional and other organisations concerned with the education and training of 16 to 19-year-olds. She has already announced the Government's intention to publish next year a White Paper covering the full range of education and training opportunities available to 16 to 19-year-olds, and recently discussed with the ACC and the AMA arrangements for a joint review of major policy areas to be dealt with in the White Paper.

Mr. Haselhurst: Will it not be impossible to devise an effective programme that is properly co-ordinated for the 16 to 19-year-olds until we have brought education and training together in one Department, a Department of Education and Training?

Mr. Oakes: I do not think that the answer is to deal with Departments in that way. The 16 to 19-year-olds do not form one coherent group. Their needs are diverse, and because of that it is important to have a system that is flexible and can respond quickly to certain aspects of young people's needs.

Mr. Gerry Fowler: Does my hon. Friend agree that while the needs of young people in this age group are diverse they cannot be categorised and assigned at the age of 16 years to a particular programme or to the responsibility of a particular Department? Does he agree that flexibility is essential in the system and that that means coherent planning?

Mr. Oakes: It means coherent planning, but not in the way that the hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. Haselhurst) suggested in his supplementary question.

Dr. Hampson: The Secretary of State keeps making the accusation that the


staying-on rate in Britain is one of the lowest in Europe. Is the Minister aware that there will be some concern on both sides of the House if the position is as bad as she makes out? What is the basis of the charge, because in the hon. Gentleman's reply to a question a fortnight ago he said that nine out of the 10 countries listed have no up-to-date figures beyond 1970? He remarked that the differences in definition that underlie the figures make comparisons ineffective and inapposite.

Mr. Oakes: Different countries' statistics are prepared in different ways. However, the staying-on rate in Britain is bad. It is about 30 per cent. That is an average. It is much worse in some areas. It is much worse in working class areas and among working class children.

Science Research Council

Mr. Macfarlane: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science when she next plans to meet the chairman of the Science Research Council.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: I meet the chairman frequently. He was present yesterday at a press conference which I held about my decision to increase the planned totals for the science budget substantially over the next four years. I shall meet him again on 18th December when I open the new headquarters building of the Science Research Council and the Natural Environment Research Council in Swindon.

Mr. Macfarlane: I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for that answer. Is she aware that, although that increase is most welcome in many quarters, the fact is that it is £47 million spread over four years and among six or seven sources? Will she ensure that her Department constantly keep under review the budget of the Science Research Council? We do not want to return to the conditions of the past three or four years during which time the morale within the science arena has declined extremely badly. What assurances is she able to give to the House on this important subject for Britain?

Mrs. Williams: I do not think that I need to give assurances, because the facts speak for themselves. We have now turned the corner and we are back to a state of steady growth for the science research budget, which I believe to be crucial. I

wonder how the hon. Gentleman can reconcile his pressure on this issue with his own party's commitment to cut further public expenditure.

Mr. Spearing: Will my right hon. Friend tell the House whether she is completely satisfied that the priorities of the Science Research Council are those of the nation as a whole, and whether the council on its own is capable of assigning the priorities of the scientific manpower available in Britain to the needs that she and the country desire?

Mrs. Williams: Yes. I have taken a great deal of interest in the Science Research Council. I have not the slightest doubt that the emphasis on the development of engineering methods, microprocessor systems, teaching companies, and co-operative awards between science research and industry is absolutely in line with national priorities. In my view, the council is doing a remarkable job for the country.

Mr. Hooley: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what expansion or contraction of funds for the Science Research Council is envisaged in each of the next three financial years.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: As I announced yesterday in reply to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Earn-worth (Mr. Roper), I intend, subject to parliamentary approval, to allocate £149·7 million at 1978 survey prices to the Science Research Council in 1979–80, compared with £145·9 million in 1978–79. I have accepted the advice of the Advisory Board for the Research Councils that the council's planning guidelines for the following three years should improve progressively to reach a growth of 1 per cent. in 1982–83, compared with the annual decline of 1·7 per cent. which was forecast at the beginning of this year.

Mr. Hooley: Is the Secretary of State aware that the reversal of the decline is welcome? However, that decline in itself was a sad error of policy. Is she satisfied that the sums now available will enable the Science Research Council to discharge all its national obligations satisfactorily, as well as discharging its international obligations?

Mrs. Williams: Yes, I have the assurance of the chairman of the council to


this effect. It will take a little time to turn round what was a prospect of decline into a prospect of growth. Meanwhile, I assure my hon. Friend that the other research councils will be growing quite rapidly. The chairman of the Science Research Council is very satisfied with the profile that now exists.

Mr. Gwynfor Evans: Is the Secretary of State aware that Wales is almost empty of scientific research institutions and as a result our ablest young scientists have had to leave our country? Will she take steps to correct this discrimination against Wales?

Mrs. Williams: I assure the hon. Member that I shall be pleased to look into this matter. I have studied the distribution of research expenditure, which is very much in line with the pattern of population in the United Kingdom as a whole.

Educational Maintenance Allowances

Mr. Bryan Davies: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science when she expects a national scheme for mandatory educational maintenance allowances to operate.

Mr. Flannery: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science when she expects to introduce a national scheme for mandatory grants for young people staying on at school after the age of 16 years.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science when she now expects to introduce a national scheme for mandatory educational maintenance allowance.

Mr. Oakes: The timing of the introduction of a full national scheme of mandatory awards for 16 to 18-year-olds in full-time education remains to be decided in the light of experience with the pilot programme covering selected volunteer areas, planned to begin in September 1979, and of the outlook for public expenditure at the time.

Mr. Davies: The Minister will realise the disappointing nature of that reply. Has the Department carried out any detailed analysis of the number of children who are likely to be deterred from staying at school, particularly those from poorer families, because of the absence

of educational maintenance allowances? How do the Government intend to make up for that deprivation?

Mr. Oakes: I assure my hon. Friend that research has been carried out. We share his disappointment that we cannot introduce a full-scale scheme immediately. Such a scheme would cost £110 million in a full year. However, it is hoped that the present scheme will not only provide useful incentives in important areas but will provide us with much more valuable information when the scheme is actually working.

Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: I shall call, first, those hon. Members whose Questions are being answered.

Mr. Flannery: Does the Minister accept that very large numbers of children—especially those of poor parents—are literally being induced to leave school at 16? They are not getting the opportunity—just as the Prime Minister said that he did not have the opportunity in a similar situation—to go on to university. Does he also accept that we should make very serious attempts, despite the laughter of Tory Members, who all had chances of higher education, to encourage our children to stay on at school, and not induce them to leave and be immediately unemployed? When this scheme comes, could we have it without a means test?

Mr. Oakes: It would not be possible to introduce the scheme without a means test—certainly not in the foreseeable future, anyway. I share the assumption of my hon. Friend in this matter, and I think that the pilot scheme will prove that both of us are right.

Mr. Bennett: Will my hon. Friend confirm that it is the Government's priority, as soon as public expenditure is available, to make this a national scheme?

Mr. Oakes: It is certainly one of our highest priorities.

Mr. Haselhurst: Is it not a better priority for £110 million of public expenditure to ensure a better education for those who are at school up to the age of 16?

Mr. Oakes: Of course that is also our aim—to provide the best possible standards. But certainly Labour Members,


and many Conservative Members, too—see a real need to induce many poorer children to stay on at school. Many now leave simply because of poverty.

Mr. Heffer: Despite having to look at representatives of higher education on the other side of the House, does the Minister accept that higher education is essential and necessary? Does he agree that the national executive of the Labour Party, which is not liked by Conservative Members, has been pressing the Government to go ahead with the scheme as quickly as possible in order to ensure that there are no anomalies such as those that exist at the moment, where youngsters go on the dole because they cannot afford to stay at school? Some youngsters take TOPS courses, but many who would like to stay at school cannot do so because of lack of financial assistance.

Mr. Oakes: The Government treat this as a matter of the highest priority. It is envisaged that the scheme would provide about £7·50 in an award which, together with the £4 child benefit, would bring the youngster up to the same level as he would receive on supplementary benefit.

Mr. Carlisle: Is it the Secretary of State's intention that the pilot scheme set out in the Bill should be based on education needs, or based merely on areas in which youth unemployment is extremely high? Does he accept that it is more important to encourage the teaching of skills with a wider use of discretionary grants because this would be a better means of using scarce resources?

Mr. Oakes: We shall pay attention to the take-up of places by youngsters in these areas. Another factor will be the unemployment in the area, and yet another the nature of the area—whether it is inner-city or not.
On the other point about educational need, I hope that those awards are not confined in any way to being used only for O and A-levels. There is a great deal of educational need in further education, and youngsters may stay on at school or college to participate in such courses.

School Meals

Mr. Gwilym Roberts: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is her latest estimate of the number

of children taking school meals; how this compares with the position in 1977, 1976, 1975 and 1970; and if she will make a statement.

Miss Margaret Jackson: We estimate that in October of this year some 5·1 million pupils in maintained schools in England were taking school meals on the census days, representing 66 per cent. of those present. The numbers for October 1977, 1976, 1975 and 1970 were 4·9 million, 5·5 million, 5·6 million and 4·9 million respectively.

Mr. Roberts: Will my hon. Friend recollect—of course she could not personally—that about half a century ago the great mass of working-class children were undernourished and suffered from rickets? The introduction of school meals has made a major contribution to producing the present healthy generation of youngsters. Does she agree that, in view of the serious downward trend in the numbers taking school meals, active steps should be taken to reduce the price of such meals with the eventual aim of providing free school meals?

Miss Jackson: I accept what my hon. Friend says about the value of school meals. However, I do not accept that there has been a significant downward trend. There was a substantial drop in 1977, which we have now recouped. The latest available estimate of take-up of this benefit is that about 80 per cent. of children entitled to do so took up free meals.

Mr. Tebbit: Will the Minister read out those figures again for the benefit of her hon. Friend the Member for Cannock (Mr. Roberts)? I do not think that he understood them. Will the Minister confirm that the number of children taking school meals increased sharply between 1970 and 1975 and then fell during her Administration until last year, and that the number has now increased again? I do not think that the hon. Gentleman understood that.

Miss Jackson: The hon. Gentleman is correct inasmuch as there was a substantial rise in the numbers of pupils taking free meals between 1970 and 1975, but the numbers are now more or less at the same level. As to his argument that this in some way rebounds to the credit of the Conservative Government, I suggest


to him that it only shows how undernourished the pupils were in that period.

Secondary Education (Reorganisation)

Mr. Gerry Fowler: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether she can yet approve plans submitted for the comprehensive reorganisation of secondary education in Newport, Salop; and if she will make a statement.

Miss Margaret Jackson: My right hon. Friend has received proposals from the Salop education authority which are, prima facie, satisfactory. These involve a voluntary aided school and the governors of the school—the Adams' boys grammar—have not yet submitted their own proposals under section 2(3) of the 1976 Act. They have been required to do so by 15th December.

Mr. Fowler: Will my hon. Friend please put as much pressure as possible upon the governors of Adams' grammar school? This farce has continued for far too long.

Miss Jackson: We are seeking to do so.

Girl Pupils (Engineering Training)

Mr. George Rodgers: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she is satisfied that sufficient encouragement and opportunity is provided in schools for girls who wish to pursue a career in engineering.

Mr. Oakes: No, Sir, she is not. My right hon. Friend would like to see many more girls at school studying subjects, notably mathematics and physics, that would enable them to choose engineering as a career.

Mr. Rodgers: Es my hon. Friend aware that when an award was made to the one and only female apprentice engineer at British Leyland Vehicles in my constituency recently, the occasion generated such excitement that television crews arrived to record it? In view of the continuing need for highly skilled engineers in the country, will my hon. Friend set about encouraging careers officers as well as pupils to widen their vision in this direction?

Mr. Oakes: We certainly do that. The biggest single factor is the attitude of girls

themselves and their parents. However, there has been an improvement. In the academic year 1973–74, women comprised only 3·7 per cent of the student intake into engineering and technology. By 1977–78, the proportion had risen to 5·1 per cent. But that has to be compared with a figure of 36·7 per cent. for students on all courses. My right hon. Friend is therefore not satisfied with the number of women entering engineering and technology. She considers the figures to be far too low.

Mr. Forman: Since women teachers can have a powerful influence on girl students at school, would it not be an idea if the Government gave a higher priority to encouraging more of the people coming into teacher training colleges to have qualifications in O-level mathematics in particular?

Mr. Oakes: That is what we are doing. It will be a necessity for everyone entering a course of teacher training as from next year to have an O-level in mathematics.

Mr. John Garrett: Has the Department ever carried out any research into the extent to which girls are actively dissuaded by school teachers from taking such subjects as mechanical drawing, design and technology? If the Department has not carried out such research, will it undertake it?

Mr. Oakes: There has been some research into this question but perhaps not enough. Much of the evidence is anecdotal. I think that teachers and careers officers are trying to persuade girls to open their eyes much more to the availability of courses in engineering and technology.

Dr. Boyson: Has the Minister any figures as to the percentage of girls going on to physics and engineering from girls' schools, as compared with the percentage going on from mixed schools?

Mr. Oakes: No, I have not those figures before me.

Mr. Ashley: Is the Minister aware that prejudice against women in industry is very deep-rooted among both employers and some trade unions, and that it really is time that the Government spoke out strongly on this issue to each side?

Mr. Oakes: I am not certain that there is that prejudice among either employers or trade unionists. The problem is to persuade girls to take up these courses. Usually, when a firm employs a girl engineer, it finds that she is excellent at the job she is doing.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Is the Minister aware that there is an inadequate number of teachers with the right qualifications in our schools to encourage girls to go on ultimately into engineering and other allied careers? Will he look at this question rather more closely than he has, and also involve each side of industry within the schools so that there may be an expertise which at the moment is lamentably lacking?

Mr. Oakes: The hon. Gentleman should look at the facts. This Government introduced special courses for the shortage subjects. This Government, more than any other Government that I can remember, have tried to emphasise the importance of links between industry and education.

PRIME MINISTER (ENGAGEMENTS)

Mr. Montgomery: asked the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 12th December.

The Prime Minister (Mr. James Callaghan): In addition to my duties in this House, I shall be holding meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. This evening I hope to have an audience of Her Majesty the Queen.

Mr. Montgomery: Will the Prime Minister, at some time during his busy day, give some thought to the development of the microelectronics industry, and perhaps deny the rumour, which is causing great concern on each side of the House, that the INMOS research and development project is to be sited at Bristol? Does not he agree that, as a great deal of public money is involved, the project should go to an assisted area? Does not he agree that Greater Manchester, with all its facilities, would be a very suitable site for the project?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir, the Government are giving consideration to this matter. The Secretary of State for

Industry will announce the Government's decision in due course. It is true that there are many sites in Britain which would be useful and which could perfectly well accommodate this valuable new public enterprise. Whatever happens to the headquarters, I hope that all the manufacturing jobs—which will be in the proportion of at least 10 to 1 to the headquarters—will go to the development areas.

Mr. Ron Thomas: Will my right hon. Friend spare a moment in his very busy day to consider the amendment on the Order Paper, in the names of many of his hon. Friends on the Back Benches, in response to the Government's motion on the fight against inflation? Will he, in response to the Labour Party conference and the trade union conferences, declare a moratorium on all sanctions and get down to some further negotiations with the Trades Union Congress and the Confederation of British Industry?

The Prime Minister: I have considered the amendment that my hon. Friend and some other hon. Friends have tabled. I noticed the reference at the beginning to what they describe as the hypocrisy of the Conservative Party on this matter. I am sure that opportunities will exist tomorrow, subject to hon. Members catching your eye, Mr. Speaker, for the opinions set out in the amendment to be expressed.
As to declaring a moratorium, I regret very much that the last discussions we had with the TUC just failed to come to a conclusion, after I had undertaken that we would have these discussions, and I would be very ready to have further discussions with the TUC on these and other subjects.

Mr. Kilfedder: Is the Prime Minister aware that about three weeks ago, just before the present Provisional IRA campaign of bombing began in Northern Ireland, the Eire Government withdrew the police who had been stationed along the border for the last three years?
Will the Prime Minister find time today to make representations to Mr. Lynch, urging him to restore the police, in order to stop the smuggling of explosives into Northern Ireland and to stem the flow of Provisional IRA men going into Northern Ireland and back again into the Republic?

The Prime Minister: I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman and will inform my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland of what he has said about this matter. It is my experience, from my conversations with the Taoiseach, Mr. Lynch, that the Republic is as anxious as we are to avoid violence on either side of the border in Northern Ireland. I know that he has taken many steps to try to prevent it.
I should like, if I may, to add that I very much regret the explosions which occurred today, and which seem to be another example of lack of humanity on the part of those who are perpetrating them.

Mrs. Bain: asked the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday, 12th December.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Member to the reply which I have just given to the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Montgomery).

Mrs. Bain: In view of the motion in the name of the Prime Minister on today's Order Paper, will he take out his obviously busy diary and indicate to the House how much of his winter break he intends to spend in Scotland and Wales? If he does not intend to move his private office to either Scotland or Wales during that period, will he tell us how much time he intends to spend in Scotland and Wales during the referendum campaign, and whether he intends to use that as an opportunity to announce the first provisional dates for the Assembly elections, which would be a great incentive in terms of guaranteeing a "Yes" vote in these respective nations?

The Prime Minister: I am afraid that it will not be part of my official engagements today to consider how much time during the recess I propose to spend in the hon. Lady's beautiful country or, indeed, in my own country. If she offers to be my hostess, that might be an additional attraction. Indeed, I might even be able to convert more members of the Scottish National Party to vote Labour after I had been there. But I promise her that I shall continue to give my full attention, with other Ministers, to the affairs of both Scotland and Wales.

Mr. Watkinson: When my right hon. Friend meets the Queen today, will he discuss her proposed visit to Iran? Does he agree that a visit in anything like the circumstances which presently prevail in Iran would be entirely inappropriate? Does he agree that the Shah's regime should not be buttressed by a visit from the Queen until the Shah can show that he has the full support of the people of his country?

The Prime Minister: These arrangements are always announced some months in advance. If the situation in February, or whenever Her Majesty visits, is the same as it is now, of course I would certainly advise Her Majesty nut to proceed. But no visit by Her Majesty should be regarded as buttressing the regime. State visits of this sort or, indeed, semiofficial visits, take place as a matter of inter-State relationships and are not regarded as supporting a particular regime.

Mr. Pardoe: Has the Prime Minister taken careful note of the exact wording of the first seven Questions to himself on the Order Paper today? Does he not think that this part of Question Time has become somewhat farcical? Will he, therefore, start the New Year on a better footing by placing in the House of Commons Library a list of the Questions that he would like us to ask him?

The Prime Minister: That is a very novel idea. I can only say to the hon. Gentleman that, of course, I can rely upon myself to give very good answers but I cannot guarantee the quality of the Questions.

Mr. Stoddart: Will my right hon. Friend consider very seriously indeed the position in Iran? I really do think that the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and, indeed, the whole Cabinet should consider whether they ought now to change completely their policy towards the Shah and his regime, which quite clearly does not have the support of the people of Iran.

The Prime Minister: I note my hon. Friend's view, but I have nothing to add on this matter to what I have said so far. I do not believe that expressions of opinion from the Dispatch Box will aid the situation in Iran at present.

Mr. McCrindle: As the Prime Minister has today taken the unusual step of tabling a motion not for one but for two parliamentary recesses, will he give consideration to a still further innovation and table the date on which he will be prepared to face the electors of this country?

The Prime Minister: That is an interesting point. I have no doubt that it will all be brought out in the debate which I believe is due to begin in seven minutes time.

Mr. Ashton: Will my right hon. Friend take time to look at the situation in regard to the dispute with the National Union of Journalists? Is he aware that many local weekly newspapers in my part of the country are making very high profits, yet some young journalists are taking home as little as £31 and £35 a week? Will he pass on a message to the Nottingham Evening Post, which has sacked nine journalists for taking part in an official dispute, and tell it that we are living in 1978 and that we have a Trade Union and Labour Relations Act which really ought to be honoured?

The Prime Minister: I note my hon. Friend's views, but on this matter, as on many industrial questions, I do not believe that an exchange of views in the House is the best way of settling these issues. I think that the system we used to have some years ago, in which we did not ourselves embark upon these matters until it was quite clear that there was no prospect of solving them through the normal procedures of arbitration, conciliation or negotiation, certainly achieved better results than we seem to be getting now.

Mr. David Atkinson: asked the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 12th December.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave earlier to the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Montgomery).

Mr. Atkinson: Will the Prime Minister now tell the House with a clear "Yes" or "No" answer whether the Government will apply sanctions to the National Coal Board if it is forced to break the 5 per cent. pay policy?

The Prime Minister: It is a well-known rule in this House, although not always observed, that one does not reply to hypothetical questions.

Mr. Litterick: Will the Prime Minister find some time today to telephone President Ceausescu of Roumania in order that he might discover how the President managed to resist Warsaw Pact pressure to increase his country's armaments expenditure so that we in our turn might be more successful in resisting NATO pressure to increase our armaments expenditure?

The Prime Minister: That is a most ingenious addition to my responsibilities for the day. If I carry out all that has been suggested, I shall not have very much time left. Of course, my hon. Friend will recall that the basis of President Ceausescu's approach, as far as I can see, is that the Warsaw Pact already has sufficient armaments. What we must take into account is the fact that the armaments of the Warsaw Pact, especially in the theatres in Central Europe, exceed those of the NATO powers, and this is an important consideration when we consider the appropriate level.

Mrs. Thatcher: The Prime Minister will be aware that his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy has been calling for substantial measures of further nationalisation, for cutting tax relief on mortgages, for further State control of pension funds and for the abolition of the House of Lords. Since the Prime Minister, in one of his rare flashes of candour, has already revealed that he is all in favour of abolishing the House of Lords, will he say which of the other proposals he supports?

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Lady, as usual, is totally expected. I rather fancied that she would not be able to resist that kind of temptation. With regard to these matters, I am open to advice from any quarter, including even the right hon. Lady herself. I get editorial advice from the Conservative newspapers every day and from the Morning Star. I am very ready to consider good advice from any quarter, but, if the right hon. Lady really wants to know about these matters, I suggest that she gets Conservative Central Office to write to Transport House and she will no doubt get her answer.

Mrs. Thatcher: Is the Prime Minister aware that his non-answer was totally predictable? Is he also aware that it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the only real difference between himself and his right hon. Friend is that his right hon. Friend is prepared openly to discuss the objectives of the Labour Government whereas he wishes to conceal them?

The Prime Minister: If both the answer and the question were predicted, it was hardly worth while having either. Although the right hon. Lady may think it important to try to discuss party manifestos across the Floor of the House, when they are ready they will be published. I seem to remember that she had some similar embarrassment—is that the word?—when the proposals of the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) were leaked to The Economist the other day and were denied. So far as I can see, the only difference is that the hon. Gentleman's proposals went to The Economist and ours apparently went to the Morning Star.

Mr. Bryan Davies: As my right hon. Friend has recently been improving his gunnery practice, when will he turn the howitzer of a radical Labour Party manifesto upon the Conservative Benches?

The Prime Minister: That will appear in due course. Meantime, I suggest even to the right hon. Lady as well as to my hon. Friend that they should not believe everything they read in the newspapers. I know that this is something to which the right hon. Lady frequently falls victim, but I promise her that one day she will find that not everything—even in The Sun or the Daily Mail—is totally accurate.

Mr. Tom King: Does the Prime Minister realise that it is not sufficient to say that all will be revealed in the manifesto? The Secretary of State has, among other things, called for the nationalisation of the North Sea. This is already doing considerable damage to confidence and it is up to the Prime Minister to make the position clear.

The Prime Minister: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman knows that the 200-mile limit was agreed a long time ago. I assume that he meant nationalisation of North Sea oil. If that is the case, he will allow me to remind him that the country

—thanks to a Labour Government and no thanks to his Government—are taking a very substantial proportion of the product of North Sea oil for the national benefit and will continue to do so. I hope that we shall continue to have his full support.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS

Mr. Peter Bottomley: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. Some time ago you announced that on occasion lion. Members might have the opportunity to ask a second supplementary question, especially when a Minister refused, declined or somehow failed to give an answer to the question asked. I am not complaining about the non-answer that I got from the Minister today, but may I ask you whether, on occasion, this will still be your practice?

Mr. Speaker: If I made that promise, I was a very unwise person. There are times when I allow hon. Members on both sides of the House a second bite at the cherry, but as long as there are a large number seeking to get a first bite at the cherry it is very difficult to allow it too often.

ORAL QUESTIONS (MR. SPEAKER'S RULING)

Mr. Speaker: I have a brief ruling to make. My attention has been drawn to the effect of the Prime Minister's proposed motion to shorten the Christmas Recess by one day on the 10-day rule for notices of Questions.
In accordance with long-standing practice, the Table Office has been accepting Questions for days after the Adjournment on the basis of the dates announced by the Leader of the House last Thursday. Questions were accepted up to and including Tuesday 23rd January. The new proposal for the House to sit for an extra day on Monday 15th January means that the Table Office has accepted some notices for one day more than the 10 sitting days laid down in Standing Order No. 8(6) as being the longest possible period of notice.
The Standing Order does not prescribe what should be done in these circumstances. In December 1967, however, the then Leader of the House proposed


to move, as now, that the Christmas Recess should be shorter than the period which he had originally announced; so that the position was substantially the same as today. My predecessor then ruled that it would be inconvenient alike to Members, Ministers and printers to insist that the out-of-time Questions should be withdrawn and retabled the following day. I agree with this ruling, and accordingly have directed that Questions tabled yesterday for Tuesday 23rd January be regarded as valid.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Before we leave that issue, may I ask whether it is not the case that the House has not yet approved the motion, so that the whole situation is hypothetical at this moment?

Mr. Speaker: Order—except that hon. Members, once they see on the Order Paper the date that is proposed, submit their Questions to the Table Office, and in this case they have been accepted. I am legitimising something that was almost but not quite legitimate.

Mr. McCrindie: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. On the assumption that the motion on the Order Paper is approved, are we to take it that there cannot be any question of oral answers on Monday 15th January?

Mr. Speaker: No. There will be Questions on 15th January. I think that hon. Members ought to take time to study what I have said. There will be Questions—and Answers, I hope—on 15th January.

ADJOURNMENT (CHRISTMAS AND WINTER)

Motion made, and Question proposed,

That this House at its rising on Friday do adjourn till Monday 15th January and at its rising on Friday 23rd February do adjourn till Monday 5th March—[Mr. Foot.]

3.35 p.m.

Mr. George Younger: I beg the House to consider carefully whether this Christmas motion should be accepted. We consider this question at the beginning of each recess but we consider it today against a background of complete shambles in the Government's business programme, at a time when there is not even a great deal of legislation.
What is especially objectionable is that the Government are having to put off, or put on at an extremely inconvenient time, important business which is of great interest to many hon. Members and of great importance to many people. I refer to the decision of the Leader of the House to hold the debate on the rate support grant order for Scotland after 10 p.m. on Thursday this week. My memory is as fallible as anyone's but I cannot remember any occasion since I came into this House when the rate support grant order for Scotland has been considered at that time. The Leader of the House must be aware that this is massively inconvenient to all Scottish MPs.
Most Scottish Members have had strong representations from constituents all over Scotland about this rate support grant order and now have the unenviable prospect of trying to do justice to a subject of immense importance after 10 p.m. on a Thursday evening. There will be very many difficulties.

Mr. Denis Skinner: How can the hon. Gentleman complain about the length of the recess at the same time as he is making the complaint that he cannot stop here on Thursday night, and so do only a four-day week?

Mr. Younger: The hon. Gentleman may not be terribly quick on the uptake. I have sometimes wondered if that was the case. I am not complaining about that; I am complaining about putting a matter of great importance for Scottish voters on so late at night on a Thursday,


when it cannot possibly get proper consideration. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] I am with your courtesy, Mr. Speaker, about to be given a few moments to explain that to the House. Perhaps hon. Members on the Government Benches will do me the courtesy of listening to the case that I wish to make.
Hon. Members who are making the noise mostly represent English or possibly Welsh constituencies. They are to have a nice day's debate on Thursday about their rate support grant orders. When they make their speeches on Thursday, they will have time to put their arguments, with a full day in which to discuss the issue. They will be making their speeches when the press and media representatives can take note of what is being said. This will ensure that their constituents have these matters drawn to their attention and that they can be properly aired.
It is grossly unfair on electors in Scotland, not only because it is to be late at night—that is fair enough, and it has to happen sometimes—but because there will only be an hour and a half at a most impossible time of the week for these important matters to be discussed.

Mr. Dennis Canavan: Like the hon. Member, I represent a Scottish constituency. In fact, the hon. Gentleman is a constituent of mine. If, as I suspect, all he is bothering about is the travel arrangements home, and if he is willing to stay here on Thursday night and do the night shift, when he gets to Stirling station on Friday morning I will get my wife to give him a lift home.

Mr. Younger: My travel arrangements are much more simple than those of the hon. Gentleman. Whereas I have to travel only between here and Ayr at the weekend, he apparently has to come back from El Salvador to give us the benefit of his advice. My arrangements are simpler, but, if he has any difficulties, as one of his constituents I am sure that I will be able to help him.
My complaint is not about travel arrangements, and I have not referred to them. I have referred to the fact that Scottish ratepayers will not have the chance of having their grievances aired.

Mr. Bob Cryer: They will.

Mr. Younger: They will not. The hon. Gentleman is making his comments from a position of great comfort. He will be able to talk about his constituents' problems at a decent time of day, with plenty of time to discuss them, but I will not—nor will my other colleagues, from both sides of the House, who represent Scottish constituencies.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: rose—

Mr. James Lamond: rose—

Mr. David Steel: rose—

Mr. Younger: I am overwhelmed by the interest that my remarks are causing. I give way to the Leader of the Liberal Party.

Mr. Steel: I am listening to the hon. Gentleman with great interest, and I support his argument. Since he knows, however, that the rate support grant settlement will become a devolved matter, I take it that he will use the benefit of the recess to campaign for a "Yes" vote in the referendum, so that these matters can be given proper attention.

Mr. Younger: It is my business what I do in the recess, but I shall be giving a great deal of attention then to the referendum. The rate support grant, of course, has to be dealt with at the moment on the present arrangements—and will have to be so dealt with for at least one more year. So, with great respect to the right hon. Gentleman, that is not relevant to my complaint today.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: I have a better suggestion, I hope, than that of the Leader of the Liberal Party. No doubt my hon. Friend knows that the rumour is that we shall have a week's recess in order to fight the referendum in Scotland.

Mr. Peter Emery: No—it is on the Order Paper.

Mr. Lewis: In that case, it is not just a rumour. Would it not be better if we came back for a day of that week to discuss the Scottish rate support grant? That would give my hon. Friend the time he seeks.

Mr. Younger: I am indebted to my hon. Friend. He has unerringly put his


finger on exactly the problem. Of course, if the Lord President were prepared to give us some other time later on, it would be very acceptable—but for one point, which is that the Government's arrangements are so chaotic and so badly drawn that there is no chance of any time later on which would not make the debate too late to influence the decisions that have to be taken about next year's rating and the consideration of them by Scottish local authorities. Thus, my hon. Friend's suggestion is absolutely right, but for the fact that the Government have allowed this matter to come up so late that there will not be time for mat debate later on.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): If the hon. Member will allow me, I hope that we may dispose of this point immediately. The original proposition from the Government was that we should discuss the rate support grant on Wednesday of this week. It was in deference to the representations of the official Opposition that we changed that arrangement.

Mr. Younger: The Lord President is most unwise to have made that intervention. As he will know, the reason for that change goes back to his sordid efforts and those of his hon. Friends on the Left wing last week to escape a debate that they did not want and a vote that they knew they could not win. Therefore the Lord President—

Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I have never known such anxiety to get into a debate. I hope that the hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger) will confine himself to the Adjournment motion—as I hope every hon. Member will—and to the question whether we should adjourn or not, and for this period.

Mr. Younger: I am certainly confining myself totally to that.

Mr. David Stoddart: The hon. Member referred to "sordid" tactics by the Leader of the House and his Left wing friends last week. I have to point out that many Back Benchers were involved in trying to ensure that they scrutinised properly £25,000 million of expenditure that was before the House. I was one of those concerned, and I was

very concerned indeed. I very much resent the slur that the hon. Member has cast on my character and on the characters of other hon. Members who were properly doing their job.

Mr. Younger: The hon. Member is not prepared to take his responsibility. He may not like it—I do not expect he does, because he is a responsible person—but he is responsible for what took place last week, because he supported his right hon. Friend.

Mr. Stoddart: No—he told me off about

Mr. Younger: Nevertheless, the hon. Gentleman supported him. It is interesting to hear about ructions between the Lord President and his hon. Friend. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman was not too hard on him. But the hon. Gentleman cannot escape his responsibility. Nor can any hon. Member on the Government Benches—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I was correct when I pulled the hon. Gentleman up a few moments ago. He is rehashing the debate of last week. This time he must come to the motion.

Mr. Younger: My proposal is that because of this unsatisfactory arrangement the House should not rise on Friday this week but should remain in session until at least 10 pm next Monday so that we may have a full day's debate on the Scottish rate support grant order. I think that I have demonstrated to those who have been courteously listening to me that this is necessary.
I hope that no one will think that the rate support grant is a minor matter and that I am making a lot of fuss when I complain about having only an hour and a half to debate it. It is an important matter. A large sum of money is involved, even for Scotland. An even larger sum, of course, is involved for England and Wales.

Mr. Michael English: rose—

Mr. Younger: I have given way far too often already, and I must conclude my speech.
The rate suport grant order for Scotland is of great importance and on this occasion there is also great controversy.


The Government have made changes in it which are unacceptable to the majority of Scottish local authorities, although they may be rather more acceptable to a minority. I and my hon. Friends have had many representations on the subject. It is therefore a matter of grave concern that, because of the Government's tactics, they will shove the order through the House at a late hour on a Thursday night, to the great inconvenience of the constituents of many Scottish Members who are expecting to see them tomorrow in their constituencies and now will not be able to do so. This great inconvenience will spread much more widely than Members of Parliament.
Next Monday would be highly suitable for a debate on the order. It would not greatly inconvenience Scottish Ministers to have to come back to answer that debate. If we had a full seven or eight hours, we could make all the necessary points and Scottish local authorities could feel that they had been given proper treatment by Members of Parliament and that their grievances had been properly aired.
I have great objection to the growing Government practice of putting through generalised grants of this sort and then making it impossible later on to discuss their details. A similar consideration arises in connection with the new system of housing support grants. I have complained all along about this. Once the public expenditure survey and the figures in it are passed by the House, which is often done on the nod or with only one day's debate to cover the whole range of the matter, there is no further way of arguing about the figure allocated for housing.

Mr. English: Not if the Opposition will not allow it to be discussed.

Mr. Younger: The practice extends also to the rate support grant. Once the order is passed late on Thursday night there will be no subsequent opportunity to change it. If the Opposition allowed—I am sure that they would be glad to do so—we could spend a Supply Day talking about the difficulties caused by the order. However good that debate may be, however, there is no way in which it could change the Government's intentions—no way in which it could reverse the rate support grant order or its distribution.
Once we have passed the order, we are held collectively responsible for its contents. If we complained about it subsequently, we would be told that we had the opportunity to discuss it when it came before Parliament and that if we did not like it we should have done something about it then. On the arrangements now proposed, we shall be unable to do anything effective about it. Everyone knows that it is impossible to do anything effective between 10.15 and 11.45 on a Thursday night on a matter as important as this.
Something will have to be done, and if the Lord President will not give us a debate on the subject next Monday I ask him to approach the Secretary of State for Scotland to see whether he can hold the order back so that we may debate it on the day we return after the recess. That would satisfy me, provided that the Secretary of State for Scotland would agree that what was said then would have an effect on what he did, and that it would still be in time to make an alteration, should that be the will of the House.
The Minister of State, Scottish Office, is listening to the debate. Perhaps he will advise the Lord President whether that proposal is possible. We cannot be accused of having failed to air a matter of such importance to our constituents. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will try to do something about it.

Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I should have informed the House that I shall call the first amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English).

3.52 p.m.

Mr. Michael English: I am grateful for that information, Mr. Speaker.
I wish first to comment on the speech by the hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger). If a Scottish Member objects to the contents of a rate support grant order for Scotland, he should at least have the courtesy to mention that per head the Scots get more than the English, as do the Welsh and the Northern Irish. Since I represent Nottingham, West, even though I am of half Scottish ancestry and half Irish, I think it only


fair for the United Kingdom to point out that the hon. Member is objecting to an order that gives his constituents more than my constituents will get. My local county council, controlled by the Conservatives, is protesting strongly at the equivalent order for England. My constituents are doing far worse out of that than the hon. Gentleman's constituents will do out of the Scottish order.
I do not think that it does the House of Commons any good to say that one does not want a matter debated on a Thursday night. I accept that the hon. Member for Ayr has farther to go to his constituency than I have to mine. That is an understandable difficulty, although it does not necessarily take him longer to get there. If he knew the train service to Nottingham, he would know that the air service to Scotland was probably capable of beating it any day of the week.
The important point is that we can deal with matters on a Thursday. When the hon. Gentleman was saying that we could not do things on a Thursday night, one of his hon. Friends was laughing his head off. On which night of the week was it that not only the Left wing but a large number of hon. Members did something? It was last Thursday night. It is possible to do things on a Thursday night if one has a reasonable measure of attention to one's duties.
Why did my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House combine two motions in one? He says that we should adjourn till 15th January, and that is understandable. He says also that at our rising on 23rd February we should adjourn until 5th March. These debates are always regarded primarily as Back Bench occasions. Of course, my right hon. Friend and his Conservative counterpart will reply to the debate, as we want them to. The arrangement that my right hon. Friend proposes, however, is depriving us of one bite of the cherry. This is another small erosion of the rights of Back Benchers. I hope that my right hon. Friend will give us an assurance that this will not be repeated and that a double-barrelled Adjournment motion will not recur.

Mr. Foot: I do not regard this procedure as an erosion of the rights of Back Benchers. It is certainly not intended as

such. It is intended to give the House an indication that we think it would be a good idea for there to be a short recess before the referendums take place in Scotland and Wales. I have had a number of requests from different sides that we should give some indication of this, and that is what we are doing. It will not interfere with the subsequent debate on the Easter Recess or the recess after that. I hope that my hon. Friend's objection to what we propose will therefore be removed.

Mr. English: I accept that explanation. The point then simply arises, if we are to have an extra recess, why are we not to have an extra debate on an Adjournment motion? I understand my right hon. Friend's reasons, but I hope that in future we shall not have double-barrelled motions of this character.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: Has the hon. Gentleman noted that in his motion the Leader of the House speaks in terms of a Winter Recess? That has nothing to do with the referendums. Does the hon. Gentleman think that that is a precedent that we shall be following?

Mr. English: I hope that the hon. Member, who represents the constituency in which my parents-in-law live, since he knows what the winters there can be like, is wrong in his forecast about the weather.
You have placed me in a quandary, Mr. Speaker. Out of the kindness of your heart you have selected my amendment, which seeks to leave out "Friday and insert" Monday ". I am sure that you would never dream of giving reasons for your selection, and neither would I dream of asking for them. However, I am entitled to speculate, and my speculation is that you have selected the amendment because of the possibility that it might be carried—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I should have told the hon. Gentleman that he can, of course, advance the argument which is embodied in his second amendment but that for various reasons the amendment is out of order. That is why it was not selected.

Mr. English: My comments, Mr. Speaker, refer to the amendment that you selected. I speculate that that amendment might be carried, and that causes


me a certain reluctance to move it. I am sure that the kindness of your heart will extend to allowing me to discuss the point at issue without actually moving the amendment. The situation is one that I have explained at some length on two previous occasions.

Mr. Cranley Onslow: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) is confusing the House. We had the impression that you probably called him at this early stage not to recite his family tree but to move an amendment. If he is not proposing to move it, perhaps he will sit down.

Mr. English: As I understand it, had I moved the amendment I would not have been able to address myself to the motion because I would have had to restrict myself to the terms of the amendment. The hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) is sufficiently knowledgeable on procedure to know that that is so.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall exercise my discretion and say that the House will be able to have this Adjournment debate without merely deciding whether we adjourn on Monday or Friday. I shall exercise my discretion and hope that the House will support me in that ruling.

Mr. Norman Tebbit: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Since the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) has tabled an amendment which he may decide not to move, would it be in order for another hon. Member to move it for him?

Mr. Speaker: It would mean Monday, not Friday. It would be in order, if somebody wished to move it, to do so on the hon. Gentleman's behalf. However, the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) is now in the middle of his speech.

Mr. English: I know that many Conservatives wish to complain about the early rising of the House. However, my main point is a serious one.
Hon. Members will have seen Early-Day Motion 113 relating to a debate on the Civil Service. The motion has been signed by every member of the General Sub-Committee of the Expenditure Committee and in total by over 200 Members in all parts of the House. It has

been supported by Members from every party—and in this House that is quite a total. It is within sight of including half the Back Benchers of the House, and it would not be difficult to ensure that the motion was approved of by that number of Back Benchers.
There is a debate which has long been scheduled but which has not happened. I refer to the debate on a report of the Expenditure Committee which was presented in July 1977. I usually say "more than 15 months ago" because, owing to fault on the part of Her Majesty's Stationery Office, a body controlled by the Minister for the Civil Service, the report was not published until the Summer Recess of that year. But it was laid before the House and available in typescript to several people in July 1977—a very long time ago. We have since had the observations of the Civil Service Department on the report and the Expenditure Committee has commented on those observations.
There is considerable pressure in the House to solve the kind of problem that I participated in creating the other night. Incidentally, that did not involve only the Left wing, as was recently alleged by the hon. Member for Ayr. Indeed, I regard some Conservatives as Left wingers when one compares them with, say, the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) and the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell), who took part in the debate last Thursday.
The point at issue is that we have a deplorable set of procedures to deal with financial matters, among other things, in this House. The procedures are deplorable in two respects. First, we are never allowed to discuss public expenditure. The Expenditure Committee in its report on the Civil Service dealt with many matters. Some of them were agreed to instantly.
When we mentioned the subject of pay and said that the Pay Research Unit's proceedings should be reinstituted, that was instantly agreed between all the Civil Service trade unions and the Prime Minister, who is the Minister responsible for the Civil Service. When we mentioned the subject of inflation-proofed pensions, again what we recommended was instantly agreed between all the Civil Service unions and the Prime Minister. But other suggestions were not agreed.


The 55 recommendations put forward by our Committee were intended to be a package. There was a degree of controversy over five of those recommendations but no controversy whatever over the remaining 50. Although we said that the Civil Service was being unjustly treated in arguments about pay and that, indeed, many senior civil servants were underpaid, and although we pointed out that such people were being unjustly accused by the press of receiving inflation-proofed pensions when 7 million people—one-third of the entire working population—received inflation-proofed pensions, I must emphasise that we suggested other matters.
Some of our suggestions dealt with the procedure of the House. We asked that various committees should be set up to shadow each Department. Some of those matters related to the audit of expenditure by the Comptroller and Auditor General. We pointed out that whereas in the nineteenth century the Comptroller was responsible for auditing most public expenditure, now, for various reasons, he is responsible for almost a minor part of public expenditure—for auditing only an element of it.
The Procedure Committee, chaired by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warrington (Sir T. Williams), endorsed those recommendations, but we have still not debated that subject.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is well versed in the ways of the House. He knows that we must not debate the issues of his Committee's report as though we were debating the isssues that he wants to debate. He must argue why we should not adjourn without debating those issues. That is a very different matter from going into the full detail of the contents of the report.

Mr. English: I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, and, of course, I agree with you. I thought that I was not detailing the reasons for the recommendations. I am merely pointing out that for very much more than 15 months these recommendations have been outstanding without debate. It cannot be said that the Government are now overpressed by business or anything else.

Mr. Eric Ogden: What about tomorrow night?

Mr. English: I am not sure about tomorrow night, but there is not a great deal of business for the House to digest between now and such time as the next Parliament may supervene. Therefore, a debate on the Civil Service should be held as soon as possible, as should a debate on procedure.
My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is one of those who say that these considerations are difficult in a House where one is uncertain of a majority. I believe that this is an ideal House of Commons in which to discuss subjects of this kind. I suspect that if a reasonably commanding majority of the House agreed or disagreed to set up Select Committees departmentally-related or to revise the system of audit or whatever it may be, that would survive, whichever party won the next election. In this House the Government do not have an overwhelming majority, nor do the Opposition. Indeed, no party by itself has a majority. This is the ideal House of Commons in which to decide on these reports on the Civil Service—a Civil Service which is not supposed to respond to a particular party but is supposed to serve us all if we are in office—and to decide on the procedure of the House, which is supposed to serve all Members of the House and not only those who happen to be in a majority.
I hope that my right hon. Friend, in replying to the debate, will give some hope that the reports on the Civil Service and procedure will be debated. If that is the case, I hope that it will not be necessary to press my amendment.

4.7 p.m.

Mr. Cranley Onslow: I am not sure whether the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) moved his amendment. All he told the House was that he did not intend to press it. Having heard him at some length, I am not sure that I would support it. I am not certain that it would be worth staying on much longer to hear the hon. Gentleman once again demonstrating his mastery of the obvious. But perhaps he would say something different if he had the opportunity to make the speech that he wants to make.
I wish to intervene only briefly. To begin with, I want to mention one small matter for which I hope one day to be able to find a little bit of spare parliamentary time. I refer to a motion that I am sure a number of Labour Members would very much like to see debated—a motion suggesting that smoking should be permitted in the Division Lobbies. Without dwelling on that subject now, I look forward to the day when such a motion is put forward in the names of the Labour Chief Whip, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) and others who seem to be unable to go into the Division Lobbies without lighting up. As we well know, the rules of the House forbid smoking in the Lobbies. But the Labour Chief Whip frequently smokes a cigar in the Division Lobby, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland smokes a pipe, and the hon. Member for Bolsover, who is very democratic, smokes something that he has clearly rolled himself. What is the point of laying down rules only to see them broken?
The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House must know that what I am saying is accurate, and I hope that it will not be long before he allows the House to settle the matter in the same way as the Labour Party conference did recently. And I hope that the result will be to stop hon. Members smoking in the Division Lobbies.
I want to talk now about something else—the speech made by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) the other day. I shall not argue that the point that he sought to make is one that the House should waste any time debating. I think that it was a disgraceful and unnecessary intervention. I regret very much that in seeking comment on it hon. Members, the media—

Mr. Speaker Order: The hon. Gentleman, who has a very honoured name in this House, knows that he is entering into a debate rather than discussing whether we should adjourn. We cannot enter into a debate on matters other than those that concern us in the motion and the question whether they should be debated before we rise. That is usually the hook on which hon. Members hang their case.

Mr. Onslow: I know that, Mr. Speaker, and I do not wish to trespass on your

kindness and generosity. However, if the right hon. Member for Down, South has said—not in the House but else where, and in terms—that the future of the monarchy is a subject that should be debated, I think that I am entitled to express my opinion on the urgency of the need for a debate on that subject, but for reasons quite different from those that the right hon. Member saw fit to adduce.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member is enitled to express an opinion upon the urgency of the need for a debate, of course. I thought that the hon. Gentleman wanted to debate the matter in vacuo, without any reference to the Adjournment debate.

Mr. Onslow: I should never wish to do anything in vacuo, Mr. Speaker.
However, I believe that the subject of the monarchy is an important one. The right hon. Member for Down, South was kind enough to send me a copy of his speech. He ended this by saying that the event that he foresaw, and upon which none of the rest of us feel it necessary to speculate—God knows why he should do so—
would signal the beginning of the end of the British monarchy. It would portend the eventual surrender of everything that has made us, and keeps us still, a nation.
If there were reality in that threat, we should stay here until kingdom come to debate it, because we are here, above all, to defend the nation, and defending the nation means defending the interests of the monarchy. But if we are to be specific and discuss real threats against the monarchy, I would say that one of these—and we should debate it—is the republicanism that we know to be openly avowed by some hon. Members on the Labour Benches.
Another equally real threat to the monarchy, which we should debate, is the insidious way in which the legislation and the programmes of the Labour Party, over the years, have progressively destroyed the faith of the people in the nation to which they have hitherto been proud to belong.
We know very well that the Labour Party and some of its individual Members are still as dedicated—individual Members to their republicanism; the party, collectively, to Socialism—as ever they were. We, as those who disagree with


them and mean to resist them, are surely entitled to claim the right to stay here and to speak against them. We should not be deprived of that right by the great barrage balloon of a Prime Minister who only wants to float up into the sky, where everyone will admire him. I hope that I carry my colleagues with me.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: I am slightly puzzled. What has this to do with smoking in the Division Lobbies?

Mr. Onslow: I am sorry. I said—I hope that Hansard will have it recorded—that after mentioning, in passing, a subject that irritates me, I wanted to turn to something else, which I freely admit is more important. I hope that my hon. Friend will not fall into the trap of supposing that smoking in the Division Lobbies is the most important of topical issues. That is not what I said. My point is that there are far more important matters that we should stay to debate.

Mr. Max Madden: The hon. Member alluded to the length of this recess being the responsibility of the Prime Minister. Does he recall that the last Christmas Recess of the duration of the one now proposed was in 1972–73? Does he think that that was the responsibility of the then Prime Minister? If so, will he expand upon that matter?

Mr. Onslow: I would be out of order to do so. I would also be wasting my time. We all know that the hon. Member is a man of single-track mind and that for him time never moves in any direction at all.

Mr. English rose—

Mr. Onslow: I shall not give way to the hon. Member for Nottingham, West. I am talking about the situation that we face now under a motion to dismiss us, to gag Parliament, and to prevent us from discussing matters of serious public interest and concern which my hon. Friends wish to stay and debate.
There are many such matters. For instance, we might suggest to the Leader of the House that he should take a day to consider what is going on in the Health Service, and the growing evidence that we find that members of trade unions seem to see their self-interest as more important

than the interests of the patients. What has gone on at Charing Cross hospital has, understandably enough, made the reputations of the trade union involved less savoury in the nostrils of the public. I am sure that Labour Members who are sponsored by that union would welcome the chance to come here and defend, if they can, what has happened at Charing Cross hospital and elsewhere. Surely that is worth a day. The Secretary of State for Social Services could be persuaded to come and hear a debate, even if he did not want to take part in it.
There are many other subjects that are worth a day of our time. We would not necessarily be calling upon important Cabinet Ministers to tear themselves away from unimportant Cabinet committees and come to the House and hear criticism, as the Secretary of State for Energy was so reluctant to do yesterday. But at least let us, the elected representatives of the people, stand here and speak, as we should—not issuing statements to the press, not writing letters to the newspapers, but speaking in open debate on the Floor of what is still a democratic Chamber.
If we are deprived of this, it can only be a short time before we are told that it is all very inconvenient, that the Government can get on well enough without Parliament, that we, as private Members, have no more chance of speaking on the Floor of the Chamber—unless we happen to be fortunate enough to become Privy Councillors—that all our work will be done in Select Committees, where no one will notice us, and that nothing will be done on the basis of our reports.
What we are really talking about, and what we should debate at any opportunity—and now is as good a time as any—is the future of this Parliament and the extent to which the abuse of parliamentary majority, cobbled up by the Prime Minister and his friends, has destroyed what used to be a Chamber of real influence. It has been and is being reduced progressively. The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Ogden) may laugh. He is at liberty to be cynical about this if he wants to. But the fact that this House is to be dismissed, sent away for a month, prevented from discussing urgent matters of public importance—from the future of the


nation, at the most elevated level of all, down to the question of the day-to-day suffering that trade union members have inflicted on patients in the Health Service —is an insult to Parliament.
I hope that the House will feel that the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Nottingham, West is one that deserves some support, whether or not he presses it himself.

Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): I call the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Ogden).

4.17 p.m.

Mr. Eric Ogden: You join us, Mr. Deputy Speaker, at a very interesting time. The hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) has been in a right old mood. He was bubbling with indignation about all kinds of things. I hope that he feels better now. He was right to get off his chest whatever he had to get off his chest here in the House of Commons today.
I shall not suggest that the hon. Member's three main topics, the Health Service, the future of the monarchy, with the narrower reference to the validity of the Bill of Rights, and the question whether one should smoke in the Lobbies, ought to be discussed in any detail today. I offer the hon. Member one solution to the problem of smoking in the Lobbies. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ince (Mr. McGuire) will confirm, if hon. Members were to take snuff—which is provided by a Liverpool company—the hon. Member could forget that problem.
When the hon. Member suggested that the House of Commons was being dismissed by an arbitrary Government in order to silence criticism, I wondered where he had been these past months. There may have been a time within the life of very recent Governments, of one side or the other, when the complaints were of the dictatorship of presidential-type government, when Whips drove their reluctant Members through the Lobbies in a very arbitrary fashion, when Members responded to pressures of such kinds, when Governments had built-in majorities of 20, 50 or 100 in Lobby fodder, and whatever we said in this place during the debate really made no difference to the result at the end of the day.
Surely that complaint has not been true in the past few years. It has taken my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and the Government quite a long time to realise that power has returned to the Floor of the House of Commons. I make no complaint about it. The Government of the day may propose, but it is for combinations of Members of Parliament, of Back Benchers, to decide, in their wisdom or folly, which of the Government's proposals will be accepted, which will be amended, and which will be thrown out completely.

Mr. Onslow: That is so long as we are allowed to sit. But if we are sent away, we lose that power.

Mr. Ogden: The hon. Gentleman does not appear to realise that it is for the House, this afternoon, to accept the motion that we go, or not. We cannot amend it. I have a particular point to make, to which I shall come later. I do not think that the two parts of the motion together are very good.
The idea that the Government can tell the Commons what they must do is against the history of the past 18 months. Ministers have to take notice. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House does take notice. Indeed, other Ministers take notice. They must attach a great deal of importance to pre-legislative consultation, to taking the views of hon. Members. This is not a bad thing for the Commons, for Parliament, or for the country. It must be very difficult for my hon. Friends, but they must give a great deal more thought to what Labour Members and, to some degree, Opposition Members say when the Government of the day do not have an inbuilt majority.
I have no complaint. I do not think that the hon. Member for Woking was being fair when he said that we were being dismissed—that the rump was being sent out—to make things easier for the Government. I noted that Lord Shinwell, a little while ago, suggested that the best thing for the country would be for the Commons to be suspended for six months. I do not agree with him on that.
My complaint follows one made by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English). I do not see why we have to take the two parts of the motion together at this time. We could have had an indication that there


would be a proposal from the Government that from 23rd February to 5th March there would be a recess so that hon. Members with interests in the Welsh and Scottish referendums could take part in them. If Welsh and Scottish Members are engaged elsewhere, why should not this place be left to English Members? I could think of enough subjects—

Mr. Kenneth Baker: Because the Government could not then get a majority.

Mr. Ogden: The Government do not have a majority. Where has the hon. Gentleman been these past months? That is the whole point. The majority is back in the Commons. Many subjects that we raise quietly and persistently in one way or another could be debated on the Floor of the House. There would be no need to have a vote at the end of the day. I could provide enough useful business to keep the House going, as could every other hon. Member. This may not come about, but if there should be another time when it is desirable or necessary for other Members to be away, that suggestion could be considered. For these reasons I do not like the second part of the motion. But I am reasonably in favour of the first part of the motion—
 That this House at its rising on Friday do adjourn till Monday 15th January ".
It used to be said that Members who intervened in these debates had their bags packed and waiting at the end of the Members' Corridor to enable them to get the heck out of it. That is not true today. But it is true to say that this is the first time in 14 years that I have intervened in an Adjournment debate. Earlier in today's debate I began to think that I was wise to have stayed away from the other 53 or 54 Adjournment debates that have taken place during these past 14 years.
There is one other matter of which I have given notice to my right hon. Friend that I should like to raise. It is proposed that the House adjourns for a month. I ask the Leader of the House for an assurance that he will draw to the attention of our right hon. and hon. Friends in the Departments of Environment, Industry, Transport and Employment the needs of the outer areas of

our towns and cities, so that those needs may be considered with some urgency during the Christmas Recess. I want those needs to be drawn to the attention of Ministers, just as hon. Members will give them their attention when they go back to their constituencies.
My right hon. Friend was here last Friday morning, so he will be aware that the first motion on the Order Paper that day was to draw the attention of the House to the needs of the outer urban areas. The motion referred to the peripheral areas of Wallasey and other urban areas—or the "peripheal" areas on the Wirral side of the Mersey. In Liverpool we call them outer areas. Because the hon. Member for Wallasey (Mrs. Chalker) was unable to be in the House through temporary illness—I am sure that the whole House wishes her a speedy recovery to good health—it was not possible for that motion to be moved.
I was tempted to move the Adjournment of the House to discuss the same subject—not under Standing Order No. 9—but that would have been difficult last Friday morning. There was an opportunity to discuss the needs of the outer areas of our towns and cities. Indeed, the Whips were saying to Labour Members "Tell us more. Take all the time you like. It is time that this matter was debated." They probably had more than one reason for asking hon. Members to go into detail, instead of saying" Shut up and sit down ". However, we missed that opportunity.
Before we go to our constituencies, I ask my right hon. Friend for an assurance that he will draw to the attention of those Ministers whom I have mentioned, and others, that during the last two or three years the Government have rightly given priority to the needs of inner city areas, that that has been done in partnership with local authorities and voluntary organisations, and that a great job has been done. Some of that help laps over into the outer areas. Real attention having been given to the inner city areas during the last two or three years, the time has come for us to do the same for the outer city areas. Let us have an outer area partnership to do for outer areas what has been done for inner areas—of course, not in competition with, or taking anything away from, the inner areas.
We hoped to raise this issue before Christmas, and we have used this opportunity to do so. Before I support the motion, I ask for that assurance from my right hon. Friend.

4.26 p.m.

Mr. Alick Buchanan-Smith: I should like to raise three matters. I appreciate that other hon. Members wish to speak. One of the traditions of this debate is that those who seek to speak in it do so as briefly as possible.
First, I support what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger) regarding a debate on the rate support grant order for Scotland. This is a matter of considerable importance, particularly to ratepayers in Scotland. My hon. Friend's concern was not over the hour at which the order is to be debated but whether one and a half hours would be sufficient. Under present arrangements, that is all that we should have. I think that we should consider sitting on Monday in order to debate the order at a time which will give an opportunity for all hon. Members whose constituents are concerned about the matter to deploy their arguments.
Whereas rate support grant orders for England and Wales have been debated for a whole day—technically, if taken after normal business, they would be allowed only one and a half hours—Scottish orders have all too often been taken after 10 o'clock, and that has restricted the opportunities for hon. Members to put their views.
Because of a change in the distribution element of the rate support grant order, my constituents in the Grampian region are seeing a reduction of £2¼ million in the amount of rate support grant which they would otherwise have expected to get. That means that services will have to be reduced or that a greater burden will have to be put on the ratepayers themselves. That situation is naturally causing concern.
I want the opportunity, which I may not get because of the shortness of the debate on Thursday night, to deploy the arguments and interests of my constituents who will be sorely affected in consequence of the Government's action in redistributing the rate support grant formula.
The second matter which I should like to have debated—if necessary, staying on longer to debate it—concerns a small but important section of local authority staff in Scotland. I have raised this matter with Ministers on numerous occasions, and I suggest that it is important enough to be debated on the Floor of the House.
When local authorities in Scotland were reorganised four years ago, a certain section of industrial staff—school janitors, cleaners, kitchen staff and drivers—did not have their rates of pay harmonised with those who were on better scales of payment in certain of the old county and town council areas. There was a great explosion in the pay of certain classes of staff after reorganisation. Ministers acknowledge the anomalies in the areas of authorities whose staff pay was not harmonised and adjusted. The problem exists throughout Scotland, but I give as an example my constituency, where a janitor can be earning as much as £15 to £25 a week less than a janitor in the same region doing exactly the same job. That is not fair.
I have continually raised the matter with Ministers. They say that it is one for the national joint council to determine locally—this is where the rub comes —within the Government's pay guidelines. I have raised this problem with the noble Lord who is Minister of State, Scottish Office, who says that he cannot resolve it. He puts the responsibility back on the NJC, which replies that it cannot settle it because the unions are not prepared to deal with it inside the Government's pay guidelines. That may be only a small aspect of Government pay policy, but it is one where they are trying to hide behind the NJC, which, because of the guidelines, is unable to accommodate this problem of local authority staff and right a wrong that has existed for too long.
The Government are not showing enough concern about the problem. Those involved are people working in the public service, for which Ministers should show more concern. I ask for more parliamentary time so that I may deploy the case at greater length in the interests of a small but important group of local authority workers who, unfortunately, do not seem to be properly represented in the union negotiations on the NJC.
Thirdly, I come to the important question of fishing. Negotiations on the EEC common fisheries policy are at a crucial stage. When the negotiations come to an end, we in the House want the opportunity to express our opinion on the results at the earliest possible opportunity. At the last meeting of the Fisheries Ministers in the Council of Ministers, there was concern among representatives of the industry that the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was beginning to shift his ground and not to stand by some of the assurances that he had given to the industry. I say only that that is alleged by members of the industry, because we have not had an opportunity to debate the matter so far. The industry is concerned that the Minister may be achieving a settlement less satisfactory than that which he had led the industry to hope for.
What programme is envisaged during the recess for meetings of Fisheries Ministers in the Council of Ministers? Is it expected that a conclusion on the common fisheries policy will be reached during the recess? If a conclusion is reached, how soon will an opportunity be given for the House to express its opinion on it? I hope that if a conclusion is reached the Government will not ratify it before the House has the chance to express a view on the outcome of the negotiations.
People in the fishing industry feel very strongly about the matter. Unless the House accepts what the Government propose, it has no chance of being carried through, because the industry will not put up with it. I ask for assurances from the Leader of the House that we shall be given an opportunity to say whether we approve before the Government ratify what may be agreed in the Council of Ministers.

4.34 p.m.

Mr. David Stoddart: While the House is proposing to go into recess until 15th January and, under the same motion, from 23rd February to 5th March, 1,250 of my constituents made redundant by the Garrard Engineering Company, a subsidiary of the Plessey Company, will have exhausted their 90-day notice. Many of them will go on permanent recess, because there is no alternative employment for them in the

Swindon area. But those 1,250 people are more fortunate than the 800 made redundant three years ago, before the implementation of the Employment Protection Act. They were told one morning that they were redundant and were out of the gate the same afternoon. They were very unfortunate.
The people who have lately been made redundant are rather more fortunate. They have benefited from legislation introduced by this Government. They have had 90 days' pay which they would not otherwise have received. They have had time to negotiate reasonable redundancy terms from a position of relative strength rather than of absolute weakness, and they have had the opportunity to adjust to their new situation and at least look around for other jobs while still working.
I ask my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to see that the Departments concerned with these matters are made fully aware of the position of those 1,250 constituents of mine and that they are given every possible help to find alternative employment.
The people involved are very grateful for the Employment Protection Act, so much attacked by the Conservative Party, an Act which has had such beneficial effects for those now on the dole. Nevertheless, when the announcement of the redundancies came early in September it was made without warning. It came as a bolt from the blue.
We should debate industrial matters a good deal more. We should debate the relationships between Government and industry and industry's decisions that have an effect on ordinary working people, people who are our constituents, whether we sit on the Government or Opposition Benches.
Why should those people have been made redundant at all? They had been making record decks which were world-famous and they would have been happy to continue doing so for a long time. They were a good work force, not given to making exorbitant demands of their employers or to striking at the drop of a hat. They suddenly found themselves one day thrown out of jobs which some of them had held for over 30 years.
We are so often told that workers put themselves out of a job that the House will be interested to hear exactly what


happened in the case of the Plessey-owned Garrard company. The company was doing well until 1973. It sold 80 per cent. of its products in America, selling them to Plessey of America, which in turn distributed them through British Industries Corporation of America. The corporation sold many record decks on the United States market.
However, in 1973 Plessey decided that it did not want to continue in that business and it offered the Garrard company lock, stock and barrel to BIC for $35 million—a lot of money then, and a damned sight more now. BIC agreed that it would take over Garrard, but at the last moment Plessey ratted on the deal, pulled out of it and sacked BIC as its main American distributor. Having made a mess of the matter, having sacked its American distributor, Plessey did not put its own effort into the marketing of the product in the United States. That is why the Garrard company now employs 600 people instead of the 4,200 that it employed in 1974.
Great efforts were made by the employees, the unions and everyone else to save those jobs. We brought a deputation to see the Minister of State, Department of Industry, who was most helpful. Not only did he listen to us; he made personal representations to another firm with a view to having it take over the Garrard company. Unfortunately, all those efforts came to nought. That is the sorry story of the Garrard company.
I return briefly to the manner in which the decision on redundancies was made and announced. There was no prior consultation with the trade unions, in the firm or at national level. A decision was made purely on the basis of the financial situation of the Plessey organisation as a whole and the effect of Garrard on the Plessey profitability figures. The position of the Garrard workers and the position of Swindon—with a higher than national average unemployment rate—got scant, if any, attention from the Plessey Company.
One would have expected better behaviour from a firm currently enjoying more than £1 million worth of Government money, some of it in Swindon—and a company which enjoys Government contracts into the bargain. The time has come —indeed, it is overdue—for the Government to introduce compulsory planning agreements with firms which are the reci-

pients of large Government grants and are dependent upon Government contracts for survival. In that way, we might find that people such as my constituents in Swindon would not be thrown suddenly on the dole, at the drop of a hat, by a firm which in other respects is doing very well.

4.42 p.m.

Mr. Kenneth Baker: Like other hon. Members, I wish to protest about the unusual nature of this recess motion. I believe that this is the first occasion since I have been in the House when two recess motions have been rolled into one. There may well be precedents, but I do not recall them. The motion has an extraordinary effect because the number of days between today and Monday 5th March, which is the day we resume after the referendum recess, amounts to 82. We are being asked to rise for 41 of those days. We are turning ourselves into a half-time Parliament for a half-time Government.
Although the Government believe in productivity agreements, it seems to be a strange definition of a productivity agreement to say that, as we are paid roughly half the rate of parliamentarians in other parts of the world, we should therefore work for only half the year. This is what we are being asked to do. The Government, who have demonstrated their love of power over the past few days and weeks, have adopted a policy of survival through holidays. For this Government, the path to success is to go into recess.
I am sure that the Leader of the House will find endless opportunities after 5th March for the House to rise early for Easter and to remain on holiday for a long time. No doubt he will examine carefully other opportunities which are presented by the Christian calendar for further holidays between Easter and Whitsun. This is not the way that we should conduct ourselves.
The Government are cynically sending us back to our constituencies because it is the only way that they can survive, and the Leader of the House knows it. There are many issues which should be debated. The hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) has referred to the excellent report which his Select Committee produced on the Civil Service and


which has now been before the House for nearly 18 months. Bits of it have been acted upon. There has been a perfunctory and inadequate reply from the Civil Service Department. We should debate it.
The Select Committee on Procedure has produced a report with significant recommendations. Whatever hon. Members may think of it, whether they support the recommendations in part or in full, there is no question but that the House should debate the report at an early opportunity. This Chamber must be in control of its own procedures. There is considerable anxiety within the House about our procedures.
We have heard that the Cabinet has a divided view upon some of the proposals of the Select Committee on Procedure. If that is the case, I make a suggestion to the Leader of the House about how to handle the report. All such Committees are unique in that they recommend to us, as Members of Parliament, how we should conduct our affairs. If the Government cannot reach a conclusion about the recommendations of the Select Committee on Procedure, I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman places on the Order Paper the various recommendations of that Committee so that we may vote upon them, so that we as Members of Parliament can make up our minds. If the Executive want to whip a particular way or recommend their supporters to support a certain proposal affecting procedure, that is up to them. It is a charade for us as Members of Parliament to say that we are in control of our procedures if the Executive of the day decide which part of the procedures of the House we can debate and vote upon. I hope that the Leader of the House will consider my suggestion. Being the parliamentarian that he is, I am sure that he would like the House, rather than the Executive and the Cabinet, to be genuinely in control of its procedures.
Another constitutional matter which I would certainly like to see debated on some of the 41 days during which we shall be in recess concerns the point raised by the Secretary of State for Energy of the collective responsibility of the Cabinet. The Secretary of State

for Energy has engaged in this debate in a most interesting way. It is not a private affair. It is something which ought to be debated in this House, because as a result of Cabinet decisions Government policy is evolved.
As Members of Parliament we have a right to ask where Government policy is being forged. Is it in the Cabinet or in the national executive of the Labour Party? If it is the latter, it is no concern of this House because no Minister is responsible for the national executive of the Labour Party. Indeed, as far as I can see, no one is responsible for the national executive of the Labour Party. If the Leader of the House can clarify this point in his concluding remarks and tell us where Government policy is being forged—in the Cabinet or in the NEC—if he can tell us whether the Prime Minister is in charge of the party or the party is in charge of the Prime Minister, we shall be grateful.
This is an important matter because one of the proposals we have read about in the past few days has been to do with the lengthening of the life of a Parliament. That ought to concern us. It seems that the Government are toying with the idea of a longer Parliament and longer holidays for hon. Members. That is the cry of the democrat through the ages. I hope that the Leader of the House will explain to us why he has put us on half time for the next two or three months and will say whether we can expect this sort of treatment in April, May, June and July.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I hope that my hon. Friend is not seeking to mislead the House by suggesting that the time which hon. Members do not spend in this place is spent on holiday. Members of Parliament undertake extremely valuable work in their constituencies. If anything, in recent times Parliament has mistaken legislation for government. We want more and better government but less legislation.

Mr. Baker: I am only too well aware of the enormous work that my hon. Friend does in his constituency, not only when Parliament is sitting but during recesses. I remind him that we were all elected by our respective constituents not to go into recess but to represent their interests here. That is the purpose of


elections. I much regret that the Government are sending us into recess for so long, not so that more time can be spent on constituency affairs but simply because it is the only way that they can survive. It is survival through holidays. I see that one of my constituents wants to interrupt me.

Mr. Ian Mikardo: I simply want to put a point to my Member of Parliament about his allegation that the Government have put Parliament on half time. I have been a Member here, with one short break, since 1945. Half of a year is 183 days, and there has been no Session since I have been here when Parliament has sat for as many as 183 days. So it is not my right hon. Friend who has invented this. It goes all the way back to Winston Churchill, and earlier.

Mr. Baker: The hon. Member is seeking to mislead the House, because he knows perfectly well that we get up to that high figure only by taking the very long Summer Recess. What is quite unusual is that at this time of the year we are being asked to apply the same standard for holidays as applies during the Summer Recess. That is unusual, and I can assure the hon. Member that if he happened to be in Opposition if a Conservative Government ever proposed such a measure—I am quite sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) has no intention of doing that—he would be the first to make the point that I am making, as, indeed, the Leader of the House would have been when he sat on the Bench below the Gangway.
I therefore rest assured of the support of one of my constituents. I am always glad to welcome him as such—only Labour Members of Parliament can afford to live in my constituency. I can assure him that, as a result of this recess, he will be seeing a great deal more of me in Marylebone. However, the people of Marylebone sent me here to represent their interests.

4.52 p.m.

Mrs. Helene Hayman: I shall not detain the House for long, but before agreeing to this motion I think it only right that the House should review some of the harsher

events that will occur while we are not sitting. I take only the month of the Christmas Recess. During that month on current statistics, 800 babies will be stillborn or will die within the first week of life. A further 2,000 will suffer a handicap, either physical or mental, that will be with them throughout their lives.
It is wrong that we should go into the recess without having had any chance to debate—either a full debate or on a statement—the perinatal services that we offer in this country. The best services in the world could not save all those babies or avert all those family tragedies, but they could save some of them and avert some of those tragedies. As a nation, we should spend much more of our resources on seeing how we could save those babies and prevent those handicaps.
I do not belittle present achievements. The perinatal mortality rate in this country has fallen rapidly since the setting up of the National Health Service, and the Secretary of State recently indicated that the figures for the first three months of this year showed an improvement, but the rate has been falling even faster in other countries.
In Sweden, for instance, the death rate is 50 per cent. of ours. It is a matter of concern for everyone in the House that there are disparities not only between this country and other countries but within the United Kingdom itself. There are vast disparities between the different regions and between different towns and cities in this country in the risk of death or handicap to babies in the first year of life. There are vast differences—and I say this to anyone who believes that we live in a classless society—between the risks to babies born to mothers in social classes I and II and those born to mothers in social classes IV and V. Similarly, there are vast differences in the risks to babies born to unsupported mothers and those born into two-parent families.
I concentrate, briefly, on the needs of young unsupported mothers in particular because they are the most vulnerable group, more vulnerable even than those in social class V. Their perinatal mortality rates are unacceptably high. That is a matter of agreement amongst all who have an interest in this matter.


What action are the Government taking to protect the children of these mothers?
It is beyond dispute that the low birth rate is related to the health and nutrition of a mother during pregnancy. These mothers are the more likely to be dependent on the social security system, and yet that system itself takes no recognition of pregnancy. Maternity benefits are related to national insurance contributions, which is not a relevant fact and is certainly not a fact which attracts the attention and support to the mothers who need it most. The National Council for One-Parent Families has estimated that 80 per cent. of a young woman's supplementary benefit is needed simply to pay for the diet that is recommended by a London teaching hospital during pregnancy, yet we do not give even £1 a week additional dietary allowance during pregnancy.
The Government have consistently said that making the maternity grant noncontributory or increasing it from £25, at which it was fixed in 1969, is not a priority. But what better priority could there be, and what better money-saving priority could there be in the end, if one looks at the long-term costs of caring for handicapped children, than preventing handicap and improving the health of unborn children? To make the maternity grant non-contributory would cost only £1 million a year at present levels. That money would then go to the most vulnerable mothers—those who have not been employed for six months and do not have a husband who has a contribution record on which they can claim.
However, much more than that is needed to solve the problem of poverty during pregnancy, and it is to combat that poverty that the Spastics Society, which is to be congratulated on its recent work in this context, is advocating an immediate increase in the maternity grant to £100. Perhaps most important of all, the society is trying to encourage women to seek earlier care during pregnancy, because in this context late reporting is associated with low birth rate and with handicap. The society is advocating that the grant should be increased and made payable at stages during pregnancy.
In the evidence which the Department of Health has presented to the Expendi-

ture Committee on the subject of perinatal mortality there is no mention of the needs of these young unsupported mothers or the dangers of poverty in pregnancy. I do not believe that it is right that this House should depart for the Christmas Recess, and envisage another recess, without putting down a marker to the effect that the perinatal mortality rates in this country are unacceptably high and that we could and should do something about them.
It is not a matter of our not knowing how to tackle the problem. If we put more money into the pockets of pregnant women, if we fed them better and gave them more resources in terms of community midwife and antenatal support, if we improved the neonatal services so that those vulnerable low birth rate babies could be saved, or their handicap prevented, we could make immense inroads into statistics that are appallingly high.
Such statistics may sound remote to us, but for the families with children growing up handicapped every one of those statistics is a personal tragedy. We in this House should direct our attention to seeing how we can avert those tragedies. That is why, before we agree to this motion I ask the Lord President to indicate that a priority for the Government will be to give support to the most vulnerable babies being born in this country and to say that the Government are willing to put more money and resources, and some imagination, into a concerted programme of care.

4.59 p.m.

Mr. Ronald Bell: When we debate these recess motions we always have a good deal of conventional masochism, which does no harm provided that it meets with no success, and I am not one to complain about the length of recesses. This one is not a particularly long recess. I can remember—and I am sure that the Leader of the House can remember—when the House normally came back in the last week of January. Indeed, it is not so very long ago that Governments stopped apologising in July for asking the House to sit in the autumn. So do not let us get silly about a few days here and there on a recess.
What concerns me much more is that if we are sitting we ought to attend to certain urgent business, and I am greatly


concerned that we shall rise for Christmas without having debated the extremely important question of immigration. There seems to be considerable shyness about a debate on this subject on the part of those who control the lion's share of parliamentary time. I do not suppose that every hon. Member—certainly not Labour Members—agrees with my views on immigration, but I am sure that all hon. Members agree that it is scandalous that we have not had a debate on the subject for a very long time.

Mr. Dudley Smith: My hon. Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Baker) referred to the number of Select Committee reports that have not been debated. My hon. and learned Friend will remember the furore earlier this year over the report of the Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration. One would have thought that the Government would be falling over themselves to have a debate on the subject.

Mr. Bell: My hon. Friend is right. The reasons why we should have had a debate on immigration are legion, and the Select Committee report is one.
Another powerful reason is the continuance of immigration on its present scale, bearing in mind that every addition is an addition to a corpus, the size of which must cause the greatest anxiety to every hon. Member. It is a cumulative problem and it goes on whether we give it our attention or find it more agreeable to forget about it. It goes on week by week and month by month.
It is particularly wrong that we should rise for Christmas without having debated immigration, because yesterday and today a Member of the Government, the hon. member for Oxford (Mr. Luard), has been in Geneva at a conference called by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to discuss migration from Indo-China. It is not merely possible but probable, that the Minister will agree that Britain will take many thousands—perhaps tens of thousands—of migrants from Vietnam. Emotional considerations arise from that possibility, and the motion for the Christmas Recess is not the proper occasion on which to consider them, but it is a serious matter and we shall probably be committed,

through our Government, to a major degree of migration from Indo-China.
There is a parallel from the past. We are often told—I believe wrongly—that we are committed to accept Indians from East Africa as immigrants. They are extraordinarily and irrelevantly referred to as United Kingdom passport holders—on the basis, I assume, of lucus a non lucendo—since passports have nothing to do with it. We are told that we were committed to that by Ministers. There is a great deal of dispute about whether that is so. Lord Duncan-Sandys always said that he never agreed to it, but Mr. lain Macleod said that he thought that a Government had agreed to it. One thing is clear: Parliament was never told and never agreed to anything.
It seems that something similar will happen again. We shall be told that a Minister has agreed or a Government—this Government—have agreed to take in a massive quantity of people from Indo-China on humanitarian grounds, without Parliament having been told or asked or having consented.

Mr. Bruce Grocott: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman confirm that a big source of immigration to this country at the moment is white Rhodesians leaving Rhodesia? Is it his view that we should take a close view of that and, if necessary, impose restrictions and quotas on those people?

Mr. Bell: I immensely deplore the mental attitude lying behind that sort of intervention—taking a point and a counterpoint. All I am asking is that Parliament should debate and, if appropriate, consent. I deliberately avoided going into the merits of the issue because hon. Members may take different views of the merits. I should certainly take a different view from the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Grocott). Does the hon. Gentleman therefore think that we ought not to debate the matter? Is it his view that commitments that alter the whole face of this country should be entered into without Parliament being asked for its opinion?
We shall be rising for Christmas this week, and a Minister is at a conference where he may be giving his assent, on behalf of us all, to something which may be of the greatest significance to this country. That is the point that I am


making—not the miserable niggling one about whether people are white or black or whether they are British people, as the Rhodesians are.
I ask the Leader of the House to give his attention to this matter. I do not know what we can do about it in the short time that remains before we rise. That is why I raise the question on the motion. Can the right hon. Gentleman perhaps give an assurance that this country will not be committed before we return from the recess, so that we may be told what is proposed to be agreed to on our behalf and have an opportunity of saying whether, after full examination of the merits, implications and consequences, we approve of what is being agreed to in our name?

5.7 p.m.

Mr. Max Madden: These debates are invariably the occasion for synthetic anger, and no one will have been disappointed with today's debate so far. I exclude the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell), who was honest in his support for the proposed Adjournment. The hon. and learned Gentleman commented on the need for a debate on immigration. I trust that he will recall that on several Thursdays I have joined him during business questions in asking for time for a debate on immigration. I am sorry that the time has not been provided.
However, I must remind the hon. and learned Gentleman that the Opposition have within their gift a considerable number of parliamentary days, and I wonder whether he has made representations to the leader of his party for Supply time to be given to debate immigration. Perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman can tell us why the Leader of the Opposition has refused to give time for such a debate.
Whenever Back Benchers urge that time should be given to debate a subject, the Leader of the House and Ministers always tell us that they understand and have every sympathy with our request but that, unfortunately, there is never enough time to debate everything. I understand and sympathise with their problems, but one difficulty that has already been posed in the debate is the smokescreen from the

hon. Members for Woking (Mr. Onslow) and St. Marylebone (Mr. Baker).
Both hon. Members left me with the impression, and I am sure that they wanted to give this impression to the general public, that we were being asked to agree to an unduly long Christmas Recess. I asked the Library to give me the dates of the Christmas Recesses since 1969, and those records show an almost uncanny similarity in the lengths of Christmas Recesses since that time.
When the Conservative Government were in power Christmas Recesses lasted for 24 days, 26 days, 31 days and 19 days. So far under this Government Christmas Recesses have lasted for 24 days, 24 days, 18 days, and 24 days. This recess is to last for 31 days. For a comparable year one must go back to 1969–70, and for a longer recess to 1965–66.
Let us not hear any more synthetic anger about there being a new nostrum of government through survival by holidays. If one looks at the facts, that is nonsense. It is in the interests of all Governments, whether Labour or Conservative, to have long recesses and for Parliament to be adjourned for the maximum available time.

Mr. J. W. Rooker: My hon. Friend says that one must go back to 1965–66 to find a longer Christmas Recess. The Labour Party came back with a majority of 100 after that long recess. Perhaps the same will happen in 1979.

Mr. Madden: One never knows. This inclination for long Adjournments has nothing to do with the political colour of the Government. It is a propensity of all Governments to want long Adjournments and to see that Back Benchers, in particular, are away from the House.
I hope that the length of the Adjournment in recent years will stop hon. Members from attacking workers for the lost production that might occur because of their Christmas holiday. I hope that we shall not be treated to the usual lectures which some hon. Members seek to give others who have shorter holidays than Members of Parliament.
There is a long list of subjects which deserve debate in the House. The Guardian today listed a long catalogue


of urgent matters which deserve debate. I shall identify a few. The reports on procedure, privilege, broadcasting, the Civil Service and official secrets are some which are of great importance to many hon. Members on both sides of the House. Because of my constituency connection, I am particularly interested in the threat to employment from imports. That remains an urgent worry to those of us who represent constituencies with textile industries.
I am indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn and Hatfield (Mrs. Hayman) for her remarks about infant mortality. She said much of what I wished to say. I am particularly anxious about the infant mortality rate in my constituency. I am advised that last year the infant mortality rate in the district of Calderdale in West Yorkshire was the highest in the country. There are serious allegations that this is the result of a shortage of nursing and medical staff in the local hospital service. The situation will not be improved unless there is an increase in that staff.
I have put Questions to the Secretary of State for Social Services on the matter. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn and Hatfield in urging the Lord President to provide an early debate so that all hon. Members can urge the Department to take action to ensure that the infant mortality rate is reduced throughout the United Kingdom.
I hope that the Lord President will also be able to indicate when, within the 44 days provided for in the negative order procedure, he will allow a debate on the Prayer against the recent increase in the price of television licences. The Government's recent decision to abolish the vehicle excise duty is bold and adventurous. It will be of benefit to many motorists, especially those who drive less than 7,500 miles per year. They include drivers in rural areas. The arguments marshalled for the abolition of vehicle excise duty are identical to those which can be marshalled in favour of the abolition of television licences. This is an outdated, old-fashioned poll tax which bears heavily on low income groups, particularly pensioners and others who have the least financial resources.
Vehicle excise duty is an expensive scheme which costs about £25 million a

year to administer. Evasion costs about £15 million a year. There are proposals to computerise the system and to renew the detector van fleet because of worries about increased evasion. I hope that the Lord President will ensure that a debate on this subject takes place at an early date. I assure him that many Members, particularly Labour Members, are anxious to press the case for the early abolition of the television licence so that the BBC can be financed from the Exchequer under arrangements similar to those used for financing universities.
I should like to draw the attention of the House—not for the first time—to the problems in the newspaper industry which are causing much anxiety. This is a subject worthy of debate. I hope that we shall have a statement from the Minister before we adjourn on Friday on the situation at Times Newspapers Limited.
I am glad that the Secretary of State has proposed a meeting under his chairmanship of the trade unions and the management of Times Newspapers Limited. This course was urged upon him in a recent debate and I wholly commend it. I believe that we should have a statement on this subject before we rise at the end of this week in order to give hon. Members the opportunity to question the Secretary of State on his initiative, what he is proposing to do and the progress of the talks.
The serious dispute within the provincial newspaper industry has already closed a large number of provincial newspapers. The strike is now extensive. There has been an overwhelming response by members of the National Union of Journalists to the instruction to take strike action. I hope that the Lord President can discover from the Secretary of State for Employment what attitude his Department has taken and what views it has expressed to newspaper employers about their proposal to make a pay offer in excess of the 5 per cent. pay guidelines. There should be a statement on this matter and hon. Members should have the opportunity to question the Secretary of State.

Mr. Robert Adley: Will the hon. Member give way?

Mr. Madden: I shall not give way, because I have almost concluded my remarks. My protest at this Adjournment is not a hair shirt protest against Members of Parliament, like anybody else, being able to enjoy Christmas. But I believe that this recess is unduly long and should have been a week or so shorter to allow the opportunity for reasonable debates. Hon. Members have real and urgent contributions to make on subjects which are not of great political controversy and on which majorities are not of paramount importance. These issues should be of concern to all Back Bench Members.
At the end of the day, these matters rest in our hands. It is not for the Executive or the Government to tell us for how long the House should operate. I hope that the gathering revolt which seems to be apace on various Benches in the House will gather momentum and that we shall not be faced too soon with motions to adjourn for this length of time, because it is unacceptable in a modern parliamentary age.

5.20 p.m.

Mr. Dudley Smith: I am sorry that the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Madden) talked about Members of Parliament getting a longer holiday than some workers in industry. I do not know about the hon. Gentleman's position, but when the immediate Christmas and New Year period is over I shall have a wealth of engagements to attend and functions to carry out in my constituency. I imagine that many hon. Members are in exactly the same position. It is wrong that we should give the impression that when we rise for three weeks or four weeks we are going on holiday. The world does not know, although many of our constituents do, that Members of Parliament become extremely busy once they return to their constituencies and have the opportunity to pay visits that otherwise they could not do because of the ties of the House.
The hon. Member for Sowerby made brief reference to a subject on which I shall detain the House for a short time—namely, the proposed abolition of the road fund licence and increased tax on petrol. In some respects I am comforted that the hon. Gentleman is much in favour of the proposal, as it confirms

my view that I must be right in taking a diametrically opposed one.
This is an argument that should be debated. At present we have a most unsatisfactory state of affairs. Much more explanation is required from the Secretary of State who has promoted the scheme. It is entirely wrong that, having put forward such a revolutionary proposal, the right hon. Gentleman has not ensured, in collaboration with his right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, that the House has an early opportunity to discuss the venture.
I suggest that the Government's integrity is in doubt. That is why the issue should be debated at an early date. Their integrity is in doubt because they are pretending to cut a tax when they intend to levy it elsewhere. I accept that to begin with a fair number of motorists will benefit. However, that situation will not last for long.

Mr. Rooker rose—

Mr. Smith: No, I shall not give way as I wish to be brief.
Petrol has recently risen in price and it is likely to increase next year irrespective of Government interference. At the same time, we could well see the inflationary spiral taking over because of outside forces over which, admittedly, the Government have no control. It is only the gullible who will believe that the extra price of petrol—for example, an extra 20p a gallon—will remain for more than a year or two once that becomes the established norm. I prophesy that the majority of motorists will be much worse off by the mid-1980s if the new system comes into effect. We shall be faced with a gallon of petrol costing anything between £1·30 and £1·50. I suggest that by its very nature the new taxation will be selective. It will be unfair and eventually damaging.
We have heard mention of the rural areas. I represent a constituency which has about 34 villages and hamlets. I believe that many of those residents are worried about the scheme. They are at the heart of England and they surround three large towns near the Birmingham and Coventry conurbations. Most of the individuals who live in the rural areas have considerably longer journeys than those who live in towns. They are forced to use their cars because public


transport is either extremely poor or nonexistent. Very often the wives have to use cars for shopping purposes because there are not sufficient facilities in the villages.
There is the whole issue of increased business costs as a result of the raised price of petrol under the new tax proposals. A tremendous mileage is covered by representatives, salesmen and executives in commerce and industry. Despite the gyrations of the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection, there is no doubt that the extra costs will be passed on by the various businesses concerned. They will be passed on and they will become an integral part of the cost mechanism facing British industry in future.
We hear that there will be a registration fee for the ordinary motorist. We are told that it will be purely nominal. We have not been told what "purely nominal "means. If it is purely nominal, for how long will it remain purely nominal? We have seen that type of proposal before. For example, the road fund tax, so-called, was always an anomaly. The tax was supposed to pay for the roads but it never did. That was the position under Labour and Conservative Administrations. It was totally abused throughout the years.
I cannot believe that a Labour Government are setting out to reduce taxation or to do away with bureaucracy. That would be turning logic on its head. The system has been presented as a means of changing taxation and as a means of getting rid of officialdom. However, we are told that the giant Swansea centre will remain. I believe that I am not misquoting the Secretary of State for Transport when I say that there will be a thinning down at Swansea but that nobody will be made redundant. Therefore, we shall see the cost to the motorist gradually increased while we maintain the costly bureaucracy that we have seen built up over the past five or six years.
I recognise that there is an argument to the contrary. I am not so foolish as to pretend that there cannot be a good debate on the whole issue. However, I believe that the various matters that I have put forward require detailed scrutiny. It is right and proper that the view of the hon. Member for Sowerby and my view should be aired in a full-scale debate.

By that means we could question in detail the Ministers concerned. We could have an authoritative statement from the Secretary of State and the Opposition Front Bench.

Mr. Hugh Jenkins: rose—

Mr. Smith: The hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Jenkins) appeared to wish to intervene but it seems that he thought better of it.
A general transport debate is long overdue. We are all worried about the incursion of heavy lorries in our constituencies. We are all worried about the increasing number of accidents that take place in inclement weather on our motorways. We are all worried about the detailed planning of motorways. There are also small issues that seem to lead to an increasing number of complaints—for example, noisy motor cycles. That may sound a minor matter but it is one that should be incorporated in a general debate. However, head and shoulders above all other issues is the revolutionary proposal put forward by the Secretary of State for Transport. It is time that the House had the opportunity to investigate the proposal in some detail.

5.28 p.m.

Mr. Hugh Jenkins: The hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Smith) thought I was endeavouring to interrupt what he was saying. The truth is that I thought he had ended his speech. I was anxious to make my speech. I was rather sharp off the mark. That does not mean that I was not extremely interested in what he was saying.
I made the astonishing discovery a short while ago that for 1976–77 the House provided that some £89 million should be spent upon the arts and libraries and that only about £83 million had been spent. Therefore, we were underspent by about £6 million. In my personal experience that has never happened before.
At a time when the arts are starved of money, when the National Theatre does not know where to turn to keep going, when theatres in the regions are in equal distress, or are possibly even worse off, although they receive less publicity, when a body such as the Theatre Trust which the hon. Member for Canterbury


(Mr. Crouch) was instrumental in introducing is entirely without money, and when we are told that none of those establishments can have any Government funding, it is extraordinary that the House has voted money to the arts which the Minister concerned has not spent.
We have £6 million which we intended to be spent upon the arts. We have £6 million which could take the National Theatre out of its difficulties. We have £6 million which could raise the national collections out of their problems. We have £6 million which could ensure that all theatres in the regions are taken out of their present position of dire financial concern. But the money has not been spent, and I should like a debate on why this is so. Why do we find ourselves with £6 million voted but unspent?
There must be some grave miscalculation. The House does not vote money easily. Estimates are gone through with very great care and finally a figure is agreed which it is believed will be sufficient to cover the period. Sometimes supplementary Votes have to be secured, but in this case the sum voted by the House was not spent and £6 million went back into the coffers of the Treasury. It should not be there. I am sorry that we shall adjourn, according to the motion, without having an opportunity to discuss that.
That is not my main purpose in rising this afternoon. I wish to draw the attention of the House to the fact that we have not yet got the Public Lending Right Bill on to the statute book. This is an extraordinary state of affairs. Whether or not it is true that this is not an unusually long recess—my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Madden) said it was true and he is always right—it is unprecedented that a Government Bill should have been around in one form or another for a matter of four years and that we should go into recess after recess without having got that Bill onto the statute book. This is surely a unique set of circumstances.
I understand that the closure is to be moved on this motion at 7 o'clock. But unless my right hon. Friend is able to come up with some strong assurances about the Government's intentions in relation to the Public Lending Right Bill

in the new year, I shall not be able to support him when the closure is moved. Indeed, I shall be strongly tempted to vote against it.
Therefore, I hope that my right hon. Friend will be able to give a firm assurance that it is the Government's intention —and I hope that the Shadow Leader of the House will be able to give equally firm assurances about the intentions on his side of the House concerning public lending right—to do something about this. If he does, I shall not have to vote against the closure.
I do not wish to go into the melancholy history of the PLR Bill. It was introduced originally in the autumn of 1975 in an almost identical form to that which is now before the House. The Second Reading began in the spring of 1976. It was adjourned. The whole of the summer passed and, although the House sat for a good part of it, the Second Reading was not completed until the autumn of 1976. The Bill went through Committee but it got stuck on Report. The result was that the Government found themselves in the position of having to introduce a new Bill. The new Bill is the same as the old Bill, but it has one very great advantage, namely, the figure of £2 million instead of the original £1 million. In the meantime, much water has flowed under the bridge and we are here in exactly the same situation.
The Second Reading has taken place, followed by the Committee stage, and the Government have showed a commendable urgency about the matter. I praise my right hon. Friend for the urgency which the Government have shown—and praise does not come easily from my lips. We then came to a full stop. We are going into recess not yet halfway through the Report stage. We have dealt with only the first part of the 70 or so amendments which a handful of opponents to the Bill have tabled. How will the Government deal with this?
My right hon. Friend may say that we shall have an all-night sitting, but that will not be the answer. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The opponents of the Bill may be boneheaded, but they are certainly stouthearted. They will not be deterred from staying here all night. Therefore, an all-night session is not necessarily the answer. I shall certainly


stay. But I hope that my right hon. Friend will be able to give the House an assurance that if the all-night sitting were to fail he would not hesitate to introduce a timetable motion to carry the Bill through.
It is a mockery of parliamentary democracy if a Bill that is supported by both sides of the House—it is in the manifesto of the Conservative Party, it has been approved by the Liberal Party, supported by nationalist parties and this party could not be more committed to it—can be defeated by three or four hon. Members. That is not parliamentary democracy, but the reverse. There are times when the majority must prevail. When the majority is as large and as widespread as it is on this Bill, it is not fulfilling the process of democracy to have the Bill held up by a handful of hon. Members.
If I were an author, and if the Labour Party on this occasion were to fail to fulfil its function, I might be sorely tempted to say to myself that the only way I would get justice in the long term would be with a Conservative Government in power. I should not like any of my author friends to be driven to that dreadful conclusion. Therefore, I hope that my right hon. Friend will be able to give me the sort of assurance that will enable me to tell them not to contemplate any such dread thought. I would be able to say that my right hon. Friend is not the weeping willow that they think he is. His resolution is strong and his words on this occasion will be fulfilled in the deed. I hope that I shall be able to do that and that it will not be necessary for me to oppose the Adjournment of the House. I look forward with confidence to my right hon. Friend's speech.

5.38 p.m.

Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: It is interesting to hear that authors should vote Conservative in future because of the dilatory nature of the Government. But I share the view of the hon.. Member for Putney (Mr. Jenkins) that the Government have not been wholly dilatory in this matter, and I hope that they will be able to get the Bill through.
I think that there is something new about the Adjournment debate for the Christmas Recess—a feeling in the House. It was touched on by the hon. Member

for Sowerby (Mr. Madden). For some time I have had some doubt as to whether the question of the Adjournment for the summer and other recesses should be wholly in the hands of the Government Whips. I am changing my view about this. I believe that it should be a parliamentary matter and a matter that the Committee on Procedure and others should analyse.
I am also changing my view on whether we should always rise for certain very long traditional periods. They should be substantial because of all the work that is attendant upon a Member of Parliament outside the House. The moment that I leave, for example, on Friday, I shall go round the hospitals because of the appalling situation caused by the Government's inactivity on the National Health Service. I shall examine the situation not merely by seeing the patients but also by seeing the staff. Obviously, there will be quite a lot of work to do before Christmas. In one way or another, many hon. Members will be doing other work next week before they actually start the festivities of Christmas.
There is another aspect of the workings of the House that must change. Next week would give us the chance to raise this matter. First, there is the question of the future of the BBC and the way in which it is being deliberately kept short by the Government—I understand their reasons for doing so—because of an inadequate sum of money for the licence fee. A fee of £25 a year is insufficient, and it is well known that the BBC cannot maintain its worldwide standards on that basis. It is equally understood that an increase in the licence fee would be unpopular with the public. I do not believe that we can abolish it. I think that it must be increased. I suggest that the Government should fix a moderate increase this year, with the fee rising to £30 and then £35 in the second and third years. This would enable the BBC to plan its budget.
The question of the BBC and its position in the future of broadcasting and television should be debated in the House. I have an open view on whether the fourth channel should go to a public or a commercial corporation. I also have an open view as to whether, in certain circumstances, advertising should be used on the fourth channel. Personally, I would


be opposed to its being used in the existing set-up. These, however, are all matters on which views are now changing and, therefore, the House should debate them.
Over the past 20 years, we have been almost entirely governed on the question of recesses by the wishes of the Government Whips and, in a more limited way, the Opposition Whips. It now goes even further than that. In these days the Chair itself is approached by the Whips from one side or the other to indicate the length of time that will be taken in the consideration of debates. I want to see a change in this regard.
We should have the extra days next week also to consider whether there should be the extra recess. I do not think that there should be. Even if, at the time of the referendums, a number of hon. Members very properly wish to be away for the Scottish and Welsh referendum campaigns, the time of the House could be put to good use for English Members and others. The Leader of the House could have an invaluable week here, not on matters of highly controversial moment with a three-line Whip, but on the sort of matters which the House would like to debate, such as the BBC and the reports of the Select Committee on procedure.
In fact, the reports of the Select Committee on procedure are paramount. I believe that it is only now, before we get a new Conservative Government—or perhaps a new Labour Government—in the present situation in which the Government are sitting on the fence, that we have the ideal opportunity to consider setting up the type of Select Committee procedures that we want in this House in future. I am a great admirer of the line of policy of my right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann), who is Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, and of the view that each Government Department should be monitored by a particular Committee. This is the sort of matter which we could debate next week.
These are not by any means the only matters that we should consider. I have had many attempts in recent months to get a debate on the Middle East. There is also the question of debates on our policy towards Cyprus and relationships

with Turkey, which are very difficult to air in the House. Iran has hardly been mentioned in the House in the past week, yet the position in that country is urgent. We should see to what extent the Government are trying to help with that difficult situation.
Some hon. Members have rightly referred to the fact that there has been no debate on immigration and hardly any mention of the policy of the Government in trying to assist the different countries in Africa with their economic and educational problems without its being held that we are seeking to uphold in any sense the Marxist doctrines in certain of those countries.
There has been an inadequacy of debate on foreign affairs and of matters relating to Select Committees and public reports. The situation is even worse on the question of the Royal Commission. I have asked the Leader of the House on six occasions to find time for a debate, at some stage in January or February, on the Royal Commission on gambling. Still it has been pussyfooted. There has been no definite Government intention to give us an opportunity to debate this matter, although there are many recommendations in it which affect the interests of millions of people up and down the country. They want to see changes in the laws on lotteries, pool betting, horse racing and many other aspects which are covered in an extremely able report containing many acceptable recommendations.
On the question of licensing, the Erroll report has not been debated since 1973, yet there were many recommendations contained in that report that have never been debated by this House. What is the purpose of the House seeking to set up Royal Commissions to make recommendations, which affect many people in our country and whole industries such as the tourist industry, and then not even paying enough credence to them to give the opportunity for a debate in the House?
The Prime Minister wants the House to sit as little as possible. Therefore, we are treated to a situation in which the Government take 31 days' recess at Christmas—by far the longest that any Socialist Government have allowed the


House for many years. Tory Governments sometimes allowed the House to rise for a longer period. That was because of our competence. We did not need the House to sit as long as we do with the immense volume of legislation through which we have to shudder when a Socialist Government are in power.
There are many subjects on which the House is at its best. These are matters of controversy, but not of party political controversy. They are matters such as the reports of the Select Committee on procedure, matters relating to television and radio, the Royal Commission on gambling and the Erroll report on licensing, not to mention the views of the House on how we might assist in a solution to the problems of Cyprus and the Middle East. All these matters will be excluded as a result of rising on Friday instead of sitting for three or four days next week and also as a result of the recess which is to be taken in late February for the referendums.
I hope that in future we shall take a very careful look at the problem of when the House is to rise. I hope that it will not be only in the hands of the Whips but that Back Benchers will have some say on it. Matters which are of paramount importance in the country—although not necessarily to the party regimes—will then have the opportunity to be debated effectively in the House, albeit without the presence always of members of the Cabinet or the Government other than those who are particularly concerned.

5.51 p.m.

Mr. Michael McGuire: What has come out of this debate on the motion for the Adjournment—and, indeed, what has come out of the many previous Adjournment debates that I have attended—is that the House really must in the future find a better system of managing its affairs.
I have heard it said repeatedly—and again today—that we need more time in which to discuss this or that specialised report from a Select Committee of the House. It has been said repeatedly that we need to discuss this or that important point. For a short spell I was a member of the Select Committee on nationalised industries. We all felt very annoyed that after our quite lengthy research and

heavy deliberations had brought forth a massive and, we thought, very cogent report, it was never discussed by the House, so that our efforts seemed to have been a waste of time.
I know that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is a great believer in what might be called the supremacy of this House as a debating Chamber and that we ought to do most of our serious work and business in this Chamber. That is a view with which I strongly disagree. I believe that today we need to deploy our resources more effectively. This may mean giving more emphasis to a committee system, as the Americans do, and allocating to it some of the supremacy to which I have just referred. The present position, quite frankly, is not satisfactory.
The debate this evening is really about whether we need a recess of 31 days and whether, if the period were reduced, it would enable more effective contributions to be made by hon. Members. If the period were to be reduced, I should like to think that we might, for instance, find time for a debate a subject that is debated only very infrequently and then usually in relation to unemployment. I refer to the regional strategy of this country. I make this plea to my right hon. Friend. I hope that before the House rises we shall at least have a statement from the Government on one of the most important matters on which the Government are sitting at the moment—the INMOS project for the micro-processing industry.
Sometimes we are slowly conditioned to certain possibilities because we read of them in the press. If rumour has it aright, it would appear that the micro-processing industry, with all that it entails, is to go to a non-assisted area. It would appear that it is to go to Bristol. But when Ministers are asked about this they either deny it vehemently or simply deny it and say that no decision has yet been made. The point is that no decision has been announced.
Some of us are from assisted areas of one kind or another. I represent a part of the North-West. If I had the time and if I were in order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I believe that I could convince most hon. Members that the North-West has been very shabbily treated in regard to regional aid. I believe that in a sense we in this


House have paid political danegeld and that other areas which should not have commanded resources to such a degree have often been given them.
Although no decision has yet been announced concerning the INMOS project, the fear of many Members is that a decision has been made and that the project is to go to a non-assisted area. I believe that if that happens it will destroy any credibility that the Government think they have over regional policy. There should be a debate on this matter at the earliest possible time. Indeed, I should like the House to devote a few days to it after we return from the Christmas Recess.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Madden), in touching on this matter, mentioned the sensitivity of the question of imports to the assisted areas or the development areas. Nowhere is this more crucial than in his own area and in mine. Although a policy of no import controls may be a very good and wise one for a trading nation, it must be recognised that there are sensitive areas which suffer from that policy. If we were able to discuss regional policy more often in the House, some of these points could be made more effectively.
As we have been told that no decision has yet been made on the INMOS project, I particularly hope that the Government will not make an announcement about it during the recess. I hope that when the Government make the announcement, whichever area the project is to go to, we shall have a chance to debate it at the time. I believe that to allocate this new project to somewhere outside the assisted areas would be a total negation of any sensitive and sensible policy of aid to the regions. Indeed, it would be absolutely ludicrous and could not possibly be supported. It could only be understood in terms of paying political danegeld.
Some people might have wished to put the project into Wales. I want to be quite frank about this. On the basis of jobs per 100,000 people, Wales has been placed in a position of considerable advantage over the North-West. I would put it as being about three to one in favour of Wales. In relation to any other area, it is about two to one in favour of Wales.

Perhaps by seeking to put the INMOS project as close as possible to Wales, but not in Wales, the Government are hoping to escape the criticism that they are paying political dangeld again. Perhaps this is one of the reasons involved in the decision.
I believe that hon. Member should also take time to discuss what the Government are to do concerning the Boyle submissions. This should be regarded as a Back Bench matter and not as a Government matter. We have not had a clear enough statement from the Government on how they regard the review of top salaries. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, standing in for the Prime Minister last Tuesday, said that the Government wished all speed to the Boyle report, but he carefully avoided saying whether the Government would abide by the submissions. Certainly the Government have never done so before. I think that they have lacked courage, although I can understand why they have chosen, in the difficult periods of phase 1, phase 2 and phase 3, to hold back in regard to the pay of hon. Members.
I believe that we can influence the Government on this, because it is essentially a Back Bench matter. It was shown to be so when we last debated the Boyle report in July 1975. At that time the then Leader of the House, now Lord Glenamara, suggested that we should not go in for linkage, and hon. Members disagreed with him. I know that there is an open argument on this question, but I believe that the majority of Members are in favour of linkage, if for only one reason. The reason is that when the Boyle committee was set up, in response to the plea of one of my right hon. Friends, the Government said that they recognised that the question of giving Members of Parliament reasonable salaries was a sensitive one but that they would refer it to a review body. Unfortunately, the Government have not accepted the findings. They have accepted parts of the report and rejected other parts of it. If hon. Members are honest, I think they will agree that the way to avoid this kind of situation is the way in which we have avoided some of the other associated benefits of Members of Parliament—the living allowance, travelling allowance and so on. No one bothered about that. That was done quite


conveniently, cleanly and clinically, and the same can be done in this case.
I hope that my right hon. Friend will listen to all the submissions that have been made in regard to this matter, that he will reduce the amount of time proposed for the recess, which I think all hon. Members want, and that he will include among our debates a debate on regional policy. Whatever the Government's intentions with regard to their statement on INMOS, I believe that Back Benchers should be able to tell them what they think should happen in regard to the Boyle report and as far as possible to influence the Government and persuade them that they have a bounden duty to implement that report.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sower-by touched on the question of health resources. It was my intention to claim that the area which I represent in a general sense—the North-West—and certainly the Merseyside-Manchester conurbation have the worst record in infant mortality and in prenatal and postnatal care. However, my hon. Friend seemed to suggest that that sad record is held by his own region. What can be said is that the older industrial areas of the country have the worst facilities in this respect.
I speak as a Member from the North-West. I said earlier that, if they had the chance to debate it, Members from the North-West could prove that that area has been short-changed in so many respects. One of the things in respect of which the Government now admit we were short-changed was the national health allocation to the hospital boards. We in the North-West now get a special extra contribution to make up for past years of being short-changed. As a result of that short-changing, my own constituency has the worst statistics that I have described and does not have the facilities to attend to them.
One of the towns in my constituency is the new town of Skelmersdale. We were promised a hospital, which should now have been operating. It was to have been a small district-type hospital. We are now told that a much smaller hospital is in the pipeline, but because not enough money is available because of previous under-allocation, and because the regional hospital board has to attend to many other demanding matters which have a priority, we shall not get the help

which the Government have denied us over the years.
I therefore hope that my right hon. Friend will pass on a message to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services that I would welcome an announcement from the Government that the new hospital which we have so long been denied will be provided very soon.

6.3 p.m.

Mr. John Stokes: I do not believe that the House should adjourn for the Christmas Recess or later until it has debated the state of the nation. This should be the supreme issue before us at all times. People keep on asking whether we are still a nation, so great has been our fall over the past 30 years.
Like many other hon. Members, I watched "Richard II" last Sunday and heard John of Gaunt's lament on the state of England during that time. Those words rang more terribly in my ears because of the situation in which we all unhappily find ourselves today in this once great and ancient nation.
We debate many important subjects in this House. Many have been debated today, but not the most important state of all—the state of ourselves. In the last 30 years, in a mere generation, we have lost our empire, our navy and that identity as the nation which we once had, were proud to have and were known throughout the world to have. We have lost our sense of honour. We see that over Rhodesia and in many other matters of foreign affairs. We have almost lost the means of defending ourselves, we can certainly no longer keep order in our great towns and cities, and in one part of the United Kingdom—in Northern Ireland—we seem quite incapable of having the necessary will and ruthlessness to root out treason and conspiracy.
So catastrophic and so spectacular has been our fall from greatness that people are now no longer proud, as they once were, to call themselves Englishmen. Indeed, selfish greed and materialism seem to have superseded patriotism.
These great matters are glossed over here and are seldom, if ever, debated. What will historians think of our conduct in this House of Commons? We continue to pass laws—in my view and that


of most of my colleagues, too many laws —many of which put increasing burdens on our people. New words, or new meanings of words, are introduced into our language by these laws, so that words such as "discrimination ", which used to be a word held in high esteem—after all, the whole of one's life is discrimination, in respect of where one lives, one's wife, one's friends and what sort of job one does—have now become socially undesirable if not actually punishable by law.
Who suffers? It is the poorest people in the land. They are the ones who suffer under these laws and who have to bear the burden of immigration almost alone. I am so glad that that matter has been raised. The Lord President knows my views. That matter is never discussed, and that is to the great shame of the Lord President, the Government and this House. [HON. MEMBERS: "It is discussed."] At the same time, an insidious and ever-increasing attack is made upon our great institutions which were once revered and which made us the country we are. I refer, of course, to the Throne, the Church, Parliament, including, of course, the House of Lords, the judges, the police and the Armed Services.

Mr. Grocott: And the trade unions.

Mr. Stokes: We are the only people who seem to attack these institutions which the rest of the world still holds in great regard. Therefore, can one wonder that foreigners now regard us with amazement and dismay as one by one we abandon those things which we used to hold most dear?
There is, however, a crumb of comfort. As the House will know, I make no party points because I am sure that many hon. Members agree with every word I have said. The one crumb of comfort in this catalogue of woe is that these dreadful attacks upon our history and traditions and upon our nation are seldom, if ever, delivered by ordinary people but are delivered instead by the media, the intelligentsia or the intellectuals and by other rootless souls who are full of guilt and shame at having been born and bred Englishmen.
Fortunately, I find that ordinary people are still entirely sound on these funda-

mental matters. They have not been brainwashed and they are still perfectly content with their patriotism and their prejudices. These are the people whom we are supposed to represent here. They are the silent majority who over the past 30 years have watched with dismay the sudden fall of this nation. They did, of course, make their voices known—they have had few opportunities—during the Queen's Jubilee celebrations last year. These people are looking to us for inspiration and for leadership at a time when public affairs and public men are held in low esteem. In the old days, people used to feel better if Parliament was sitting. I doubt whether they feel that way today. I hope that before we go away for the Christmas Recess at least my protest will have been heard here and throughout the nation, although the main newspaper which gave our debates the greatest coverage is alas, I hope only temporarily, not being printed.
It is important that ordinary people feel that there is not such a gap between what they hope, long for and believe in and what we spend our time at here. I hope that when Parliament resumes, if we cannot prolong our sitting, we shall bend all our energies towards working for a recovery of that national spirit which made us feared and envied throughout the world.

6.11 p.m.

Mr. Bruce Grocott: The hon. Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Stokes) is right to say that we, should debate the state of the nation. I was interested to hear of his concern about what he describes as the decline of the nation. If his anxiety and mine is to arrest that, even if it exists, I suggest that he starts with his right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and urges her to stop running down Britain whenever she is abroad. I would also suggest that some of his hon. Friends should stop trying to press this side of the House to make further sell-outs to the European Economic Community. These are practical proposals that we should try to adopt to see that any suggestion of decline is stopped.
One of the crucial parts of the state of the nation and its future is the standard of education of its children. I should like to detain the House for a


couple of minutes with some matters of national interest relating to the performance of the Staffordshire education committee. Staffordshire education committee is controlled by the Conservative Party. Its performance makes an absolute mockery of the statements heard from Conservative education spokesmen about freedom of parental choice and the involvement of parents in crucial decisions affecting their children. Two matters to which I want to refer are the treatment of handicapped children and the question of primary school teaching methods.
On the handicapped children issue, in my constituency deaf children from Tam-worth are obliged to be residential at a school for the deaf some 15 miles from their homes. They are the only children in my constituency who are obliged to be residential. All the rest are transported to and from the school daily. I have spent two or three years trying to give these children and their parents a basic right and entitlement by ensuring that if parents want their children at home, to benefit from family life with their brothers and sisters each evening, that right should not be denied.
I have many letters from parents, some of them heartbreaking. One comes from a parent of twin boys, one of whom happens to be deaf, explaining how the deaf child, forced by the policy of the Staffordshire education committee to be residential and away from his family all week, is steadily becoming more separated from family life and denied contacts with brothers, sisters and parents. I realise that this does not concern most Conservative Members who believe that the right way to educate children is to send them away from home into boarding school and to separate them from their parents.
As a parent, I am not in favour of this way of bringing up children. Evidence in my possession conclusively shows that, apart from the disadvantage of being deaf and the concern that that naturally causes to the family of the deaf child, the result of an arbitrary decision of Staffordshire education committee can mean the additional disadvantage that the child has to live away from home and not have contact with people who live in a hearing world. The child loses contact with friends and relatives in a home environment and the children next

door stop coming round to ask the child out to play.
This is not a crucial matter of public expenditure. In most cases, it would be cheaper for the child to be transported daily only 15 miles than to pay for the expense of residential accommodation. Staffordshire has, however, persisted with its decision.
It is one of a multitude of examples of mismanagement by this Conservative-controlled authority, but the one I have mentioned is particularly serious because of its damaging effects. I believe that the House should debate the matter and that the Secretary of State for Education should do whatever is possible within her power to make Staffordshire change its policy.
Another educational matter of national importance is primary school reading methods. In particular, I refer to the 15-year-old experiment with the initial teaching alphabet, the ITA method of teaching primary school children. As an ex-teacher and former employee of Staffordshire education committee—one who is not on very good terms with that committee—I would say that the period of experiment of this method of teaching has gone on long enough for a decision to be made on whether it should be allowed in primary schools. It is a method of teaching which makes it very difficult for parents to involve themselves in the reading progress of their children. A serious debate is taking place in educational circles about whether to proceed with the system.
In the meantime, at the very least, parents who do not want their children educated by this method, provided there are other primary school places available in the area—that is always the provisio —should be given the option. Staffordshire education committee, true to Conservative principles, does not believe in giving parents the option in this or other matters affecting their child's education. Therefore, the future of the ITA system is a national issue on which we should make a decision.
To make sure that the catalogue of disastrous decisions by the Staffordshire education committee is on the record, I would refer to its failure to improve the Two Gates primary school, Tamworth and its failure to consult with parents on


Park infants school, Burntwood and on Hill Ridware primary school. It is a travesty of the mouthings of Tory education spokesmen about the involvement of parents in the education of their children and the proper choice for parents.
The final issue I want to raise will certainly be of national importance at the next General Election. It is a matter which we hope will be included in the Labour Party manifesto. I refer to the question of the abolition of the House of Lords. That will be supported by all who love democracy. I dare say I can exclude a number of Conservative Members.
I would, however, urge my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to recognise that some preliminary work has to be done. If we are committed to abolish the House of Lords, it may be necessary for the House of Lords to vote its own abolition. For that to happen we need far more Members of the House of Lords committed to abolition than we have now. This Christmas Adjournment debate is an appropriate time to draw it to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister that, in making any recommendations—I am not sure how this procedure works—about who should be ennobled, he should check first to see whether they agree with Labour Party policy on the House of Lords and would be keen to vote for its abolition.
If my right hon. Friend is short of people willing to give him that undertaking, I can promise that my general management committee, within a week or two or however long is necessary, would be delighted to fulfil that function. I can vouch for its reliability not to change its decision once it has been appointed. I am sure that that goes for every constituency in the land. I would therefore urge the Leader of the House, before we adjourn, to put these pertinent matters to the Prime Minister.

6.20 p.m.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: This has been an interesting debate, although that does not apply to the remarks of the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Grocott). He might have said whether all the matters he mentioned were also raised by him with the previously Socialist-controlled

Staffordshire county council. I can hardly believe that all the decisions that he says have been made by the dictatorial and out-of-touch Tories in Staffordshire were not made similarly by the Socialists when they controlled the county. I know Staffordshire well. Many of the matters that the hon. Gentleman mentioned have gone on for a long time, and until not long ago the council was controlled by the Socialist Party. Perhaps that puts his remarks into perspective.
I do not wish to shorten the recess. The longer that the House is in recess, the better work Members of Parliament can do in their constituencies and the less damaging legislation the House will pass. The House should have more debates, but they should be on general subjects, such as the reports of Select Committees, rather than on legislation, which so often damages industry, even the unions, and certainly the prosperity of the country and the well-being of many of its people.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) mentioned immigration. It is a tragedy that this vital subject has not featured as a major debate in the last few months. Whether or not the Lord President accepts it, this issue is close to the hearts of the overwhelming majority of people. If the Government complain about racial unrest, disorder and disharmony, particularly in inner city areas, they should remember that it is the Government—whether Socialist or Conservative—who have ignored this problem and who themselves are creating the difficulties which they so severely criticise in the media and in this House.
The hon. Member for Welwyn and Hatfield (Mrs. Hayman) made a useful speech when she mentioned neonatal and perinatal mortality. As a member of the Sub-Committee of the Expenditure Committee which is looking into this matter, I know that hon. Members from all parts of the House share her concern. I am particularly concerned because the rate of neonatal and perinatal mortality in my constituency—23 in every thousand —is much higher than the national average.
This is a tragedy. Many young babies die and create unhappiness and domestic problems. Many, if they do not die, have a handicap for the rest of their lives.


This is a strain not only on their parents but on the community as well. I hope that the Government will deal with this problem urgently and, when the Sub-Committee and the full Expenditure Committee have completed this inquiry, will study their recommendations and implement them speedily.
I am delighted that the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Jenkins) has returned. He said that £6 million had been under-spent on the arts by the Government. I will not say that I should like that money now to be spent on the arts. Rather, I should like it spent on hospitals in the North-West.
Information has come to my district management team and my community health council indicating that the first phase of the Macclesfield nucleus hospital is now likely to be postponed. Only today I received a telegram from the chairman of the Macclesfield community health council, Councillor Sampey, in which he said:
 An emergency meeting of the Macclesfield Community Health Council was held at 7.0 p.m. on 11th December at which concern and anger were expressed at the possibilities of a delay in the commencement of the Macclesfield nucleus hospital, due to commence on 23rd October 1979. It is felt that the regional health authority have broken faith with the people of the Macclesfield health district and particularly with the Macclesfield community health council who have given full support to the original proposals.
The people of Macclesfield have now waited about a quarter of a century for a new district hospital to serve the area. This news has come like a bolt from the blue to shock the whole district. I have been inundated with telegrams, letters and telephone calls over the weekend and subsequently because of the news which has leaked from Liverpool, where the Merseyside regional health authority is based. The community health council and the local Macclesfield district management team, as well as the general practitioners, are alarmed, dismayed and angry over what seems to them a late change of a previously determined regional priority.
I understand that another Liverpool scheme, costing between £2 million and £3 million, for Broad Green hospital in Liverpool—the construction of a cardio-thoracic unit—will be given a higher priority than the Macclesfield scheme. I and the community health council, the

district management team and the general practitioners in the area are unable to understand the priority given to this Liverpool scheme for highly specialised work, which will be of only marginal benefit for a comparatively small number of people, compared to the benefits of a whole district being provided with general hospital facilities, which could help to maintain the local population in work and relieve suffering for the growing number of elderly in the population.
I hope that the Leader of the House will look into this matter, before he replies to the debate, because the Macclesfield and Congleton area in East Cheshire has a big and growing population and the hospital facilities are, to say the least, Victorian and Dickensian. Something needs to be done soon to put this right.
Only last week the Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Security, in response to a question of mine, admitted the unsatisfactory conditions in Macclesfield and said that the Department was determined to see that they were rectified at an early date. The population of the district which I serve is growing, while the centre of Liverpool, which is already over-provided with general hospital beds, is losing population.
This information which has reached my constituency is causing a loss of staff morale and making it difficult to recruit adequate staff, including consultants. If the first phase of the nucleus hospital is put back, it is inevitable that subsequent phases will also be delayed. We know what inflation can do. Far from getting a hospital at reasonable cost, we shall not get one in the near future, and when we do get it the cost will be astronomical.
Another important matter that I wish to raise relates to the interruption of a Member of Parliament's duties. I have been advised by my district education officer that mail that I have sent him is not getting through to his office. The education office for the Macclesfield district is in the same building as that of the social services department of Cheshire county council. At the moment, a number of local authority workers, particularly social workers, are taking industrial action. Post Office workers who are in sympathy with the social workers are not delivering mail to Remenham House in Wilmslow, which also houses the district


education officer. Therefore, important cases that I have taken up on behalf of constituents cannot be dealt with by the officer to whom I have referred them.
I hope that the Lord President will deal with this matter, which I regard as a grave infringement of the privileges of a Member of Parliament and which means that he is being impeded and restricted in carrying out his duties on behalf of the people by whom he is elected.
I purposely have not raised the matter of Her Majesty's Stationery Office. The Lord President knows too much about that problem already, and I believe that he is doing his utmost to ensure that Members of Parliament can undertake their duties with the minimum of difficulty and interruption. But will he deal with this case which is causing my constituents and me grave difficulty and which means that important matters affecting children in my constituency cannot be dealt with as quickly as they should be?
I fully support the views expressed by the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. McGuire) about parliamentary salaries. This House does itself no service, and the Government do the House no service, by quite wrongly holding down the salaries and remuneration of hon. Members. We have a difficult enough job to do, and if we cannot afford to do it properly we cannot give our constituents the service they deserve.
I hope that the Lord President will do what previous Governments did before we had a prices and incomes policy and put the recommendations of the independent pay review body to the House and allow it to decide whether to implement them. This Administration back-tracked on accepted procedure and said that it was not prepared to implement all the 1975 recommendations of the Boyle committee. That was a tragedy for the House. If we cannot look after ourselves, how can we adequately look after those we serve?
I do not wish to limit the recess, but I hope that in future we shall debate matters such as that which has been raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Stokes), as well as important matters of principle and important reports which have been

produced after considerable work by our Select Committees, rather than burdening the House and the nation with more legislation.

6.34 p.m.

Mr. J. W. Rooker: I do not intend to prolong the debate unduly, but I am flatly opposed to my right hon. Friend's motion. Ministers and civil servants like long recesses for obvious reasons; there is no one in this House tabling Private Notice Questions, initiating Adjournment debates and trying to keep an account of the actions of the Executive. We have heard spurious arguments this afternoon about which party has the longest recesses, but that is not the issue. The issue is more fundamental than that and concerns democracy and how this place operates.
We have heard hon. Members suggesting today that Back Benchers should keep a firmer hold of the Government. I know that the point was made from my side of the House, but it depresses me to hear an hon. Member talking about Back-Bench power and Members' salaries and about Back Benchers having to get together. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Ince (Mr. McGuire) that he ought to come down to the House more often late at night when provisions are slipped through on the nod, and at Question Time. That is when Back-Bench power has to be exercised. There is no point in coming along here for the debate on the Adjournment motion and demanding better pay.
It is distressing and distasteful for me to hear MPs' salaries debated in public I think that most hon. Members feel the same. It is a problem from which we cannot escape, but I do not think that today is the day to raise it, given that we are talking about going away for 31 days. Of course, it is not a holiday. There is plenty of work to be done in the constituencies. But in final analysis we are elected to represent our constituents here, not to represent Westminster in our constituencies. There is a subtle difference of which hon. Members ought to take account.
The fundamental reason why we should not go into recess on Friday is that the House should have an early debate on the report published last week, Cmnd. 7341,


the report of the committee on data protection. Important issues are raised in this voluminous report, and I want to draw attention to only one aspect.
It is generally appreciated that much of the Government's involvement with the public is on computer files. What is not generally appreciated—and behind this lies the reason for the setting up of the committee to check how privacy can be maintained and accountability for data can be established—is the information set out in appendix 6 on page 350. This issue did not come to light until the report was published. That appendix contains a table which spreads over many pages. The title of that table is:
 Government computer tasks containing information about identifiable individuals at 1 March 1978, the number of records held and the authority under which the tasks are undertaken ".
There are no fewer than 270 files that the Government have in computers concerning individuals. From these files individuals can be quite clearly identified. They cover all sorts of issues, many of which we never debate. They cover invoices to farmers for artificial insemination, the broadcasting licence, with 21·5 million addresses, the census of population, involving 74 million separate items of information and records, premium savings bonds, driving test bookings in the Metropolitan area, all the health and social security information, prison records, criminal records and masses of other information. Some of it looks quite innocuous, but it represents a massive involvement of the Government in computer files on the individual. We should debate that matter. With such a massive array of information, there is a major danger that one day these files could be interlocked into each other.
There is the question of security and the involvement of the security services with computer files. Clearly the security services must have these files, because they must be efficient. No one on the Labour Benches will argue that the police or the security services should be inefficient. It must be pointed out, however, that there was not wholesale co-operation by the police and the security services in the report. An important recommendation is made on page 222 about the security applications. These matters cannot be allowed to gather dust in White-

hall pigeon-holes. With almost every month that passes, this list of computer files is added to. Every new piece of legislation will create one or more new computer file.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Does my hon. Friend have any information from the report, or could he hazard a guess, as to the number of mistakes that are contained in that computer file material?

Mr. Rooker: No, but; I intend to draw attention to the state of the law on privacy, from which it can be clearly seen that many mistakes occur.

Mr. Robert Kilroy-Silk: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the most important areas covered by the report is that of the information collected on individuals by the police? I think everyone would agree that we expect and, indeed, demand that the police should collect information on criminals. It is known, however, and the police acknowledge, that they collect information, very much of it tittle-tattle and a great deal of it rumour, on all kinds of individuals. On many occasions this can be prejudicial to a person's employment prospects and to his character assessment. If we are to have proper and adequate surveillance of information held on individuals in police computer systems, there must be a thorough investigation of it by an independent body.

Mr. Rooker: My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. There is no legal right for a citizen to check what is on file about him. The right relates only to credit reference files under legislation passed in 1974. Other than that, there is no right for the citizen to see any of the records contained in 270 separate computer files.
The data protection committee recommended a simple solution to the problem in regard to security services. That committee considered that the Data Protection Authority should contain at least one senior official with a security clearance sufficiently high for him to be able to operate as a privacy consultant to the Home Office and security services and to work out with them appropriate rules to safeguard the system.
What is the Home Office view on that suggestion? The Home Office is not the most forthcoming of Departments. Indeed,


it is probably the least forthcoming. However, that important recommendation deserves attention. It is only one part of the files covered in the report, because the general public do not appreciate how much information is kept upon them by the Government on computer files.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sower-by (Mr. Madden) read out a whole list of reports—some of which were published long before I became a Member of the House—which the House has never debated. Unless we keep up the pressure, the report on computer data will not be dealt with.
I wish also to mention the report of the Royal Commission on standards of conduct in public life, the Salmon report. That report, which was published in July 1976, has never been debated in the House. Nobody can claim that the standards of conduct in public life have improved. Indeed, I believe that the reverse is the case and that the standards are falling every year. However, again we are not even allowed to debate that report.
I mentioned earlier the computer files kept by the BBC licence department. We can avoid the difficulties in that regard if we get rid of the licence fee. I wish to support my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby in asking my right hon. Friend to tell us what are the Government's intentions in this respect. Last week I visited the Midlands headquarters of the BBC at Pebble Mill. I discovered that the BBC charter prevents the BBC making an adequate case to hon. Members.
I asked representatives of the BBC why they did not operate their own PR system to tell parliamentarians that the BBC is being coralled by the Government with increases in licence fees year by year. The implication is that the Home Office and the Civil Service have coralled the BBC in that way. When I asked the BBC representatives why they did not go over the heads of the Government and approach hon. Members, they told me that they were prevented from so doing by the BBC charter.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the BBC regularly meets hon. Members from all parts of the House at BBC headquarters?

Mr. Rooker: I was concerned with the BBC putting over its general case, in addition to meetings behind closed doors. I was told that one of the regional controllers of BBC, the man who is in charge of Radio Birmingham, was not allowed to broadcast on Radio Birmingham to talk about the problems involved in the splitting up of broadcasting, but he was able to give his view in a commercial radio broadcast in the Midlands. There is something crazy about the whole system.

Mrs. Audrey Wise: Is my hon. Friend aware that the BBC is not empowered to explain its own structure to listeners and viewers? Surely this deprives people of the opportunity of being educated about a public institution.

Mr. Rooker: My hon. Friend is correct. I have no doubt that if she manages to intervene in the debate a little later she will elaborate that point. My hon. Friend was with me at the meeting last Friday at Pebble Mill when we gathered some useful information. This is an important point and deserves the attention of the House before we go into recess for 31 days. However, there is always a chance that the motion may not be carried this evening.
The hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Smith) made some important points about the road fund licence. I agree with the principle of abolishing the road fund licence, but there is an important group of people who will be put at a disadvantage if the road fund licence goes. I refer to disabled people, who were relieved of the payment of the licence. Therefore, the disabled have paid £50 less for their motoring compared with other motorists. However, if we abolish the road fund licence and in the process increase the price of petrol, disabled people will have to pay more for their petrol at the pump in common with everybody else.
A concession which this House gave to many thousands of disabled citizens will be removed, but no Minister from the the DHSS has come to the House to explain the situation. This has all been done quietly behind closed doors and without debate in the House. This important point must be made, and not enough people are making it. No doubt some of my hon. Friends will continue in this vein in their remarks. The abolition of


the road fund licence will mean an increase in the cost of living of disabled citizens. This should not take place without a debate in this House—preferably next week.

6.47 p.m.

Mr. Alexander Fletcher: I wish to support the remarks of my hon. Friends the Members for North Angus and Mearns (Mr. Buchanan-Smith) and Ayr (Mr. Younger) to the effect that the one and a half hours devoted to the Scottish rate support grant debate on Thursday, somewhat late in the day, is inadequate. The suggestion that we could deal with this subject on Monday next makes sense in view of the concern felt by so many people and local authorities in Scotland on this grant.
I wish to make the point that the House should not adjourn until the Lord President has had an opportunity to reveal whether Ministers have any Christmas spirit to offer football supporters in Scotland—a large and well-known group of people who are renowned throughout the world for their high spirits and devotion to the national game. The spirit of Christmas coming in Scotland is being threatened by a Minister who is fast gaining the reputation of a present-day Scrooge. I am referring to the Under-Secretary of State for Employment. As we are also debating the motion for the referendum recess, it is even more important that the House should not rise before the damage which that Minister has inflicted on Scottish football is remedied.
I refer to the granting of work permits to footballers from non-EEC countries, and in particular to the case of Isak Refvik, a Norwegian visitor to Scotland. Mr. Refvik signed amateur forms for the Hibernian football club a few weeks ago and application was made for a work permit. This was refused under criteria laid down in a departmental press notice of 28th September this year, which states that overseas players must have an established international reputation. The interpretation of "an international reputation" is not disclosed, but in this case it was decided that only full international caps would do. Therefore, Mr. Refvik's eight under-21 caps were totally ignored. I should add that the application for a work permit had the full support of the players'

union and the football authorities in Scotland.
My complaint is that the criteria applied may be suitable for English first division clubs which can sign top international players—we read in the press this morning that Manchester United intends to spend £1 million on two footballers from the Argentine—but are totally unsuited to the financial situation in Scottish football and, I suggest, to other English divisions.
As there is no appeal against the Minister's decision not to grant a work permit, I wrote to the Prime Minister on 30th November asking him to intervene. As a result, a meeting was held yesterday by the Under-Secretary of State for Employment. The meeting was attended by the Minister with responsibility for sport, the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, Mr. Hardaker of the Football Association, Mr. Walker of the Scottish Football Association, Mr. Croker of the League, and union representatives from Scotland and England. The purpose of the meeting was to have talks with a view to rewording the regulations governing the issue of work permits. However, apparently nothing happened yesterday to give any hope in respect of Refvik's application.
This matter is of some significance in Scotland, if not in England. The headline in The Scotsman this morning highlights the problem and the feeling that exists in Scotland on this matter. A leading article in that paper describes the Minister's refusal to allow Isak Refvik to play for Hibernian as "Tinpot Government ", which is an apt description.
One thing that concerns me about yesterday's meeting—I hope that the Lord President wil be able to help me with this—is that yesterday afternoon's edition of the Glasgow Evening Times gave an account of the meeting. I quote just part of the report. It said:
Isak Refvik, the young Norwegian refused permission to play for Hibernian, must stay on the touch-line. That decision was repeated at a soccer summit today when Employment Minister John Grant met with representatives from Scotland, England and Wales. He said that the Government do not intend to alter permit regulations which protect British jobs throughout every industry.
My point in reading that is that the meeting took place at the Department of Employment at four o'clock yesterday, yet this newspaper was printed before that


time. Part of the evidence for that is that the newspaper includes the result of the 3·30 race at Nottingham.
What I should like to know is why the Minister called representatives of the Football Association and the League from Scotland, England and Wales to discuss a subject on which his mind was permanently fixed, with no intention of changing his mind. It is, at the least, a very grave discourtesy to everyone who was invited to the meeting.
I would suggest to the Lord President, who is a man who wishes to crown his parliamentary career by providing Britain with three Parliaments instead of one, that he must know that this is just the kind of petty behaviour which can fire the flames of nationalism quicker than any number of lofty arguments about devolution, the block grant, the referendum or anything else. The Lord President will know that nothing in the Scotland Act would devolve this kind of decision.
The point is that one insensitive Minister, caring or knowing little about what goes on in Scotland and about Scotland's historically close links with Norway, can undoubtedly damage the reputation of this House throughout the United Kingdom. I wonder whether the Lord President can tell us why the Minister is so stubborn and insists on clinging to rules which the football authorities in Scotland and England agree are hopelessly impracticable as far as Scottish football is concerned.
I understand that yesterday's talks are to be continued, and perhaps the rules may be changed in the weeks or months ahead. In the meantime, the Department of Employment seems determined to keep Isak Refvik out of Scottish football On the other hand the Home Office has no objection to him. He is a perfectly respectable young man and, of course, an excellent footballer.
I ask the Lord President to appeal to his colleague the Secretary of State for Employment to lift the restrictions on Refvik immediately so that he may continue to play as an amateur while new and more practical rules are prepared. I ask this not merely in the spirit of Christmas but in the spirit of the sort of devolution which really matters in Scotland—for example, the right to

choose for ourselves who plays football in Scotland and to pick our own teams.

6.52 p.m.

Mr. Robert Adley: I know that we are coming towards the end of our debate, but I begin by commending both the Lord President and my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) who have both sat here, throughout the many hours of this debate, listening to a wide variety of points made across the Chamber.
One could discuss for ages the reasons why we should not adjourn. En passant, I just mention that I saw on the tape earlier today that apparently Italy has decided to join the European monetary system, leaving only Britain and Eire outside that system. The hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Grocott) referred to losing our sovereignty. It seems to me that it is as a result of the Government's activities during four and a half years in office, rather than as a result of anything that has happened on the other side of the Channel, that Britain has become the world's first Euro-cripple.
There is one point that I want to discuss and I think it is an illustration of other points that have been raised by hon. Members. We spend a lot of time in this House discussing legislation which is important, but we fail to discuss those fundamental issues of human behaviour and activity which concern many of our constituents and citizens. I take one specific instance, and that is what is happening on our streets, particularly what happened in London yesterday, when we had an extraordinary situation with armed policemen trying to extricate armed criminals from a building.
There seems to be an unwillingness in this House to recognise what has been going on up and down this country since the abolition of capital punishment. I know that capital punishment is an emotive subject. I do not wish to make an emotive speech about it as such, and I recognise that there are strongly held views on both sides of the argument. Members of Parliament, perhaps, have the strongest views of all on this subject, but our constituents also have views on the matter.
I want to examine very briefly not the effect on our consciences of the abolition


of capital punishment, not even the effect on the murder statistics of the abolition of capital punishment, but what has happened to the activities of the police and the criminal community since the House removed the deterrent of the death penalty.
There are two points which I wish to bring to the attention of the House which I hope are not too controversial, even for those who are strongly opposed to any discussion of capital punishment. The first is that for the criminal there is now no extra deterrent against carrying an offensive weapon or firearm. Secondly, since the abolition of capital punishment there has undoubtedly been a statistical increase in violent crime. The House decided to abolish capital punishment, which has been delightful for many criminals but diabolical for the police, who, after all, are the people who ultimately have to bear the responsibility for maintaining law and order. Members of Parliament should never forget that.
I realise that those who enjoy taunting and decrying the police may well revel in the sight of armed police on our streets if this helps reduce the standing of the police in our society. The sight of armed police on British streets is something which, frankly, I find deeply disturbing, and it is wholly unacceptable that we should not discuss it. The one thing that we have always had in this country and of which we can always be proud is an unarmed police force. The more we find occasions on which the police have to be armed, the more we are doing away with one of the most precious and priceless assets of our society.
We may well have to consider, and certainly debate, the after-effects of the abolition of capital punishment. I think that we may have to consider not a wholesale reintroduction of capital punishment but whether the murder of policemen on duty, murder by firearm during armed robbery and murder of prison warders are not wholly exceptional crimes which appear to be either on the increase or liable to be on the increase as the result of the actions of the House some years ago.
If we found ourselves in a position where we were debating, and ultimately restoring, capital punishment for these limited offences, the result would not be

an upsurge in capital punishment but, I hope, a decrease in the numbers of people carrying firearms who are bent on criminal activity. That is the one thing which I believe we have to study and discuss in this House. We have not done so to my satisfaction.
If the price of salving our consciences on the issue of capital punishment is an increase in violent crime, we may be asking the police forces and the people of this country to pay too high a price for our consciences.

6.58 p.m.

Mr. Stan Thorne: There are a number of matters with which the House ought to be concerned before having a Christmas Recess, particularly when many people outside the House will wonder how it is possible for us to attempt to persuade workers to raise productivity while at the same time we cheerfully go away for 31 days. There is little productivity involved in that.
One could address oneself to the problems that were illustrated in the House last Thursday and which arise in regard to the debate tomorrow on a Government motion on inflation. However, I understand that one of my colleagues will deal with some of the procedural questions that arise from those matters.
I have only a local matter, which is at the same time a national matter, to raise, which I think the House should consider before it takes a holiday. I refer to industrial democracy in the British aerospace industry.
Hon. Members will recall the lengthy sittings of the Standing Committee that dealt with the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill and the attempts made by hon. Members, particularly from the Labour Benches, to ensure that within that Bill a clear duty was placed on the British Aerospace Board to establish a form of industrial democracy in that industry in the near future. In fact, a report from the industry was due a little while ago.
The shop stewards executive, representing 12,000 workers employed in the Preston-Warton-Samlesbury division of British Aerospace, invited me to a meeting quite recently to enable me to hear about the problems that have arisen. It is true to say that a document emanated from discussions in the Confederation of


Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions with which some of the unions were satisfied in terms of the effect that it would have within the industry, but the whole question of consultation in regard to the setting up of this system of industrial democracy left much to be desired. A document which purports to present a new industrial democracy structure within the industry and the reality of what exists there are quite different things.
Particularly at Warton, Preston and Samlesbury, it seems clear that the managers, who are largely the managers of the old British Aircraft Corporation—and some of those very senior managers were appointed erroneously to the British Aerospace Board—believe that the concept of managers' "right to manage" means managers' sole right to manage and that it can never be changed. The discussions that take place between managers and representatives of the work force in the various trade unions are about pay, hours and manning, and things of that description. But when the workers want to talk about the planning of the factory, the way in which labour is utilised in the factory, the need for retraining in certain skills, the whole question of recruitment of skilled labour, policies in regard to the product itself and whether diversification may still be possible in spite of a commitment to the multi-role combat aircraft, all those issues are considered by the management to be its prerogative.

Mr. Adley: I have a regular monthly meeting in Christchurch with the shop stewards at the British Aerospace factory at Hum. They tell me that they now feel that they are far more remote and far more removed from senior management decisions since nationalisation than they ever were before it.

Mr. Thorne: I think that the hon. Gentleman is illustrating the point that I am trying to make. They are more removed. I suggest that the responsibility for that lies mainly with an unwillingness on the part of management to accept that it is operating, in an entirely new situation.
I do not want to speak at great length at the expense of other hon. Members who wish to take part in the debate. If we cannot make any real progress in

instituting a form of industrial democracy in public enterprises, what prospects have we of making any progress in private industry? Clearly, management in private industry will consider that no commitment exists to introduce new methods of ensuring that workers have a right to participate in the decision-making process at all levels within their plant or industry.
It is for those reasons that I think we are obliged to reconsider the whole question of adjourning on Friday and returning on 15th January.
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) spoke from below the Gangway today. He may be above the Gangway in the not-too-distant future. He indicated that it might be necessary to divide the House on this issue. I go along with that.

Mr. Rooker: Why did my hon. Friend make that statement?

Mr. Thorne: Does my hon. Friend wish to make a point?

Mr. Rooker: No, my hon. Friend has made it. I wondered why he did so.

7.5 p.m.

Mrs. Audrey Wise: It often seems unfair to me that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is expected in these debates to answer questions and points on all manner of subjects of which usually he can have no direct knowledge. That is why I have chosen to enter this debate to raise two matters which I think are very much within his province and which concern me gravely.
My hon. Friend the Member for Preston, South (Mr. Thorne) referred to the length of the recess and spoke of it as a holiday. I disagree with him about that. The recess is not necessarily a holiday. It depends entirely on what one does with it. I pride myself on achieving considerable productivity during the recess.

Mr. Thorne: That is not how the recess is seen by the public.

Mrs. Wise: I am concerned about the effectiveness and the productivity which arise from our procedures while we are in session. My feeling that we should not break for this recess arises from the


fact that we have a great deal to do to get our procedures into a more satisfactory order so that we can be more truly productive while we are here, and so that the opinions and wishes of Members of this House can more effectively be determined.
I should like to raise two points in this connection. The first relates to the negative procedure for dealing with orders. My right hon. Friend will remember that on 30th November he had occasion to comment on a point of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Lyon) in connection with orders under the negative procedure relating to the married women's non-contributory invalidity pension. A Prayer had been tabled by the Opposition Front Bench but no time was given for it within the statutory 40 days.
I understand—I have no objection to this—that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services has referred this matter to the National Insurance Advisory Committee. All well and good, provided that that does not mean that the House is deprived of the opportunity not only of debating this matter but of coming to a decision on it, and an effective decision.
I have been trying to find out whether that is so. I find myself profoundly puzzled. Perhaps I may refer to Hansard for 30th November. Some of the cause of my puzzlement can clearly be seen there. My hon. Friend the Member for York referred to the need to have this matter debated within 40 days. He said:
There should be some way by which the House can bring the Government to order on this matter.
My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) said that there was now a custom that a matter could be taken even outside the 40 days. "Taken" was the word used.
My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House agreed with that. In referring to the matters raised by my hon. Friends the Members for York and for Nottingham, West, he said:
 It is an important constitutional question that they have raised, and I am very conscious of it."—[Official Report, 30th November 1978; Vol. 959, c. 713–4.]
The one thing that was established without any doubt was that there could be a debate on this matter even outside the 40-day time limit. I think it was

established also that there can be a vote. But it does not seem to have been established that there can be an effective vote.
To try to fathom this out I have looked at "Erskine May" and referred back to a debate in 1951. The mystery simply becomes more profound. The reference in "Erskine May" takes us back to a complex debate in which no fewer than nine Prayers for annulment were before the House. All but one were out of time. Only one was in time. Mr. Speaker ruled that it was in order to debate them all. The difference was that the carrying of the Prayer on the order which was in time would result in its being instantly annulled. There seemed to be silence about the result of carrying the other eight Prayers. No further clarification seemed possible from that debate, because in the event all the Prayers were withdrawn.
I find myself in a state of genuine puzzlement and extreme worry over this matter. I am totally unconvinced by statements which have emanated from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services in Written Answers that no woman would be disadvantaged. As hon. Members may or may not know, the order is in being. The insurance commissioners clarified the position and we moved from the situation that some women were granted the benefit, on terms which the DHSS thought were too easy, while others were not. The insurance commissioners ruled for a more liberal interpretation of the rules.
It seems impossible to say that no woman will be disadvantaged if the rules stay in being or if they are altered late. I do not know what happens about retrospection in this kind of case. There is far too much mystery. I might be wrong, but I have a horrible feeling that the Goverment Front Bench have a profound hope that it will all go away.
I shall try to put my right hon. Friend into the picture regarding the time scale. Deliberations by the National Insurance Advisory Committee are apt to be protracted. It has just made an announcement on an order which was referred to it many months ago. The closing date for submissions on that order was 27th May of this year. It took from May until the end of November for a conclusion to be reached. I am not criticising the National Insurance Advisory Committee; I am


simply pointing out that it is not a speedy procedure. During all this time the new, more rigorous rules have been in operation. Married women who would have received this benefit had the insurance commissioners' view of the law been accepted by the Department are being deprived of it.
If we find that we can debate and vote but that, whatever we do, an order cannot be annulled, the procedures of the House will have reached rock bottom. I should like a great deal of clarification. I should have liked a rethinking of the whole matter, but I should certainly like clarification of the strict procedural issues involved.
The other point that I wish to make concerns matters which recur regularly—we shall have an example tomorrow evening—when there are motions on the Order Paper, often in the name of the Government but sometimes in the name of the Opposition, and one amendment only is taken, discussed and voted upon. This matter again seems to be shrouded in mystery.
I have been spending some time looking through "Erskine May" to find an explanation. I should like to know what binds Mr. Speaker and the Government, if they are bound by anything, either in Standing Orders or in "Erskine May ". It may be that, given unlimited time to read and study "Erskine May" from cover to cover, the whole matter would become clear. But this rule, if it is a rule, seems even more obscure than most of our procedures. Some of the procedures of the House may appear puzzling to outsiders, but they become clear and may even be seen to be sensible in the end. However, this procedure seems mysterious and highly undesirable. I should like my right hon. Friend to give a clear description of how this rule arises and, if it is a rule, what it is based on. I should also like him to consider its effect.
If it is a rule, it appears to be based on the view that when matters come before the House—such as the matter that we are to debate tomorrow—there can be only two views, that of the Government and that of the Official Opposition. It appears that we cannot vote on other views on such occasions. There are several minority parties in the House, yet

their views cannot be voted on. Time after time Government Back Benchers have tabled amendments, which on occasions have drawn 100 or more signatures, and yet there has been no opportunity to vote on them.
Coming back to the effective use of our time, it is self-evident that it is a highly ineffective use of hon. Members' time if, at the end of a debate, there cannot be a clear expression of their view. I think that must sometimes cause considerable embarrassment to the Government. I suggest that my right hon. Friend and his right hon. and hon. Friends would sometimes find it easier to conduct Government business if they were not stuck with this rule, or the interpretation of this rule. It seems totally unacceptable that the business of the House should be conducted in this way. It seems totally unacceptable also that the views of numerous Labour Members and minority party Members should remain unexpressed. We are given the choice of being either in the frying pan or in the fire. That is not a choice which Labour Members welcome. Indeed, we should not be faced with such a choice.
As this matter is well within my right hon. Friend's province I should be obliged if he would give a clear explanation of how this rule arises and, if it is a rule—which I doubt—what will be done to alter it.

7.19 p.m.

Mr. David Crouch: I am glad to follow the hon. Member for Coventry, South-West (Mrs. Wise), because she questioned the procedures of the House. She asked whether they served the House and the people's representatives effectively in enabling us to carry out our job of proper representation here, with proper emphasis of representation. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Thanet, West (Mr. Rees-Davies) also questioned whether our procedures were correct in every way. Will the Leader of the House now seriously consider whether the time has been reached when Parliament must find time to consider its procedures and decide what reforms are necessary?
This debate is one of four such debates a year. They are debates in which we consider whether we should pass the Prime Minister's motion that we should adjourn


and go away for a feast and holiday, returning on a certain day, in this case 31 days later. I know that Governments of all complexions—to some extent, I suppose, supported by their opposite numbers on the Opposition Front Bench—do not like this debate, because it has been described as a waste of time. It is said that no executive action is being carried out by the Government and that this is merely a day when Back Benchers can air their grievances on the pretext that we should not adjourn because those grievances have not been dealt with.
If their impatience is hidden, I believe that the Government show a certain amount of tolerance in allowing us to have such debates at all. There is another debate to follow which will go on through the night. I suppose that in many ways it is much more important.
We have reached a stage when Parliament is becoming very frustrated. We are frustrated not only over the state of the nation and because we have not had an election for the people to decide whether we need a change of Government and a change of direction but, increasingly, because we cannot do our jobs here. We must look to the Leader of the House to recognise that that frustration exists and is building up into a certain amount of anger because we do not see more reform.
Hon. Members on both sides of the House have given many reasons why we should not go into recess at the end of the week. They have instanced many important matters that should be discussed, arguing that there is no good reason for us to take 31 days off. We have heard about Select Committee reports and Royal Commission reports that have not been considered, about health, education, foreign affairs and so on.
When the Leader of the House used to speak from below the Gangway, he really was a leader of Back Benchers. He used to deliver speeches with a vigour and fire that stirred us. He stood up for the rights of Back Benchers. He was concerned then about reform. He was concerned to stop the Government in their tracks. Where are the vigour and the fire from the right hon. Gentlemen today? We thank him for being here for the whole debate and for listening to us. I know that he will make a proper response, but at the end of the day the debate will have been another joke debate, be-

cause the Government will go on in their own sweet way. We shall not have succeeded in stopping anything. I do not think that any of our speeches today will do more than to wander away into thin air and into the dim columns of Hansard, not to be looked at very much or taken note of—more is the pity.
We need more time to consider reform. A predecessor of the right hon. Gentleman as Leader of the House, Lord Peart, uttered on many Thursdays three famous words when we asked whether we could debate this or that subject: "Not next week ". There were many subjects mentioned by hon. Members today that we should like to debate next week, or at least after Christmas, perhaps returning a week earlier, but the Government will tell us that they have decided what is to be done.
Who runs Parliament today—635 Members of Parliament freely elected by the people? No. We no longer run Parliament. We are run by a dictatorship from the Government Front Bench, by an authority which tells us when we are wanted and when we are not, which tells us" Now go away on holiday and do not come back again for a good month."
The Government would keep us away for even longer if they could. They have nothing to tell us and nothing to give us. They have no legislation to put before us, no reform. My complaint is that this is doing harm to Parliament. It is not only frustrating us as Members of Parliament but is making this Parliament a joke in the eyes of the people.
Parliament is not wanted. It can go away. It must go on holiday and stay away. If the Prime Minister has his way, it would stay away for as long as possible, until he was ready to say "Let us have an election." He does not want hon. Members here, questioning anything that might come up, whether they are Opposition Members or his own Back Benchers. I hand it to them. They are sometimes a vigorous lot against their own Government—and quite right too. I listened today to a number of hon. Members on both sides of the House saying that there was much that we should he doing for our constituents.
There is much that I could go on about, but I do not intend to do so. Parliament must assert itself. Parliament itself must determine that we begin to


reform this place and put pressure on the Government. Reform takes time. We can do much in Parliament's time. It is not the Government's time, as my hon. and learned Friend said. We do not necessarily have to return just when the Government want us to, to debate Bills that they are presenting to Parliament. We need time for Parliament itself to tell the Government how we want to see this place reformed. It is time Parliament stood up to the Government and asserted itself.

7.38 p.m.

Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas: May I begin by expressing my strong agreement with the sentiments of my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) in that extremely powerful speech.
I do not wish to speak for too long, because this is a private Members' day. I suppose that this is not the most dramatic occasion of the parliamentary year. I should be guilty of exaggeration if I said that it was. But I think that it is one of the most important, because it is the occasion on which Back Benchers can speak about the matters about which they feel most strongly. After all, parliamentary life is a species of business. It is not all fish, thunder, sparkle and excitement. What has been said today is of great importance for the future of the House.
I should be the last person to want to prolong a parliamentary Session unnecessarily. We are probably the hardest-worked and lowest-paid Parliament in the whole of Europe. I strongly agree with the hon. Member for Coventry, South-West (Mrs. Wise) that a recess is not a holiday in the sense of going off and seeking relaxation in a sunny clime. It is as much a part of parliamentary life as the Sessions when we are here. It is a time of preparation, a time of mending fences in the constituency, if that is necessary, a time of learning what is going on in people's minds. It is, indeed, a time for study, particularly if one is involved in constitutional matters. All of these things have to be done, and occasionally one finds a moment to catch up with one's own affairs, which are often neglected because one is spending so much of one's time trying to deal with the affairs of other people.
It is possible to do nothing. That is one of the difficulties about our life. Being a Member of Parliament is rather like being an Anglican parson—one can do more than anyone else or less than anyone else. The thing that we have in common is that we are paid inadequately. Naturally, I would normally welcome a recess. I do not believe that this is an excessively long recess by parliamentary standards. I accept what the Lord President has said about that. But this is not a normal situation. We have had an abnormally long Summer Recess. As we have seen from the Order Paper, as we have heard during business questions and as we have heard again today, there is a backlog of subjects to be debated. We have heard that there is a list of such subjects in The Guardian. I wish that I had read it. It would have saved me a lot of work in compiling my own list.
I have added quite a few subjects to my list during the four hours that I have been listening to this debate. There is report after report which needs to be discussed. There is the report of the Expenditure Committee for 1976–77, dealing with the Civil Service and mentioned by the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English). This is a most important report about the audit of public expenditure in the Civil Service. A total of 200 hon. Members have signed the motion relating to this on the Order Paper, yet 15 months have passed and nothing has happened.
Earlier in the debate today we heard a plea from my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger), who said that it was totally inadequate for the rate support grant as it affects Scotland to be discussed in one and a half hours on Thursday evening. This point was also made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Angus and Mearns (Mr. Buchanan-Smith). I do not reproach the Lord President about the arrangements for Thursday, because he was perfectly correct to say that it was for the convenience of the Opposition that that day was chosen. Among other reasons, the Leader of the Opposition is fulfilling an engagement of long standing on that day.
We appreciate the courtesy of the Lord President in meeting our wishes, which were expressed to him not by my right hon. Friend but by me. No one flies backwards and forwards across the


Atlantic in one day for pleasure. I have just done it and I assure you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that there are many more pleasurable ways of spending one's time. The argument about the Scottish Assembly is irrelevant to the debate which is to take place on Thursday. Irrespective of whether the Scottish Assembly is established, there will be no opportunity to discuss this aspect of Scottish affairs other than during the truncated period of one and a half hours on Thursday.
We heard a strong plea from the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Jenkins) concerning the Public Lending Right Bill. Here again, I have no reproach to make of the Lord President. No one could have acted more swiftly than he did. I was unflatteringly surprised at the speed with which he acted. In the past we had to wait a long time for the Bill. It went through Committee stage in two sittings, because of a combined effort on the part of the Government and the Opposition.

Mr. English: The Whips.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: The Whips were not necessary. The Bill returned to the Floor of the House and, alas, at a psychological moment the Government appeared to lose their nerve and adjourned the proceedings. We could have had a day on that Bill next week. Let us have an all-night sitting, if necessary. It is worth it, provided that the Government will keep their supporters here to vote for the legislation.
It has been suggested that we should have a debate on the monarchy. We do not want such a debate. What a ridiculous suggestion that is. The monarchy is the one part of our constitution which is working totally satisfactorily. It is the final irony of our long parliamentary history that today the monarchy is supporting, with its prestige and popularity, the whole of the parliamentary system. No one cares very much about the House of Lords, and we would be deluding ourselves if we thought that we were the most popular people in the country. The monarchy is upholding the parliamentary system, and that is not the least of its great services.

Mr. English: I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way and for what he has said about a debate on the report of the Expenditure Committee. Does he

realise that the suggestion of a debate on the monarchy came from his own side?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I am not interested in what side a suggestion comes from. I am looking at this from the point of view of the value of the suggestion. We do not want any debate, either, on the matrimonial affairs of the Prince of Wales. That is something which would be quite unsuitable in this House.

Mr. English: That came from the Opposition side, too.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: Never mind where it came from. We do not want to have it. Marriage is a private affair—and it should be as cheerful as the circumstances allow.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hales-owen and Stourbridge (Mr. Stokes) suggested a debate on the state of the nation I am sorry that he is missing a tribute to himself, because that was a valuable suggestion. A debate on the Health Service was also suggested. The Health Service is facing problems greater than at any moment since its inception under the National Government of 1944 which planned the National Health Service. [Interruption.] Yes, they did. The National Health Service was planned by the National Government.
We have had the case of the Normans-field hospital. There has been the neglect of our mental hospitals. This is a national scandal which would make a good subject for debate.
We have also had mention of the fishing industry and its relations with the EEC. There has also been talk of the White Paper on broadcasting and the important report from the Committee of Privileges. There have been demands for debates on industrial matters as well as a strong plea for a debate on foreign affairs. We should debate the threat to the whole security of the Western world which has arisen as a result of the situation in Iran. Even today the position has deteriorated. That would have made a suitably urgent subject for the House to debate.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) has spoken of the need for a debate on immigration. There has been no debate on the National Land Fund report. That is an important report for the future of our heritage. The


Opposition have made it clear that they support that report and its recommendations. So far there has been no response from the Government, except the noise of some departmental wrangle going on behind the scenes between the Departments of Environment and Education over who should carry off the spoils. If that wrangle goes on for much longer, there will be precious few spoils to carry off.
We have also had the Renton report on legislation—

Mr. English: That is out of date.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: It may be out of date. It reported in 1975, and an extremely good report it was. We still have not debated it. What has happened to the Weights and Measures Bill? I think of the line in" The Tempest "concerning the masque. The Lord President will remember it:" They vanished strangely ". What has happened to that Bill? What are the Government's intentions?
We have had pleas for debates on gambling, handicapped children—a most important part of the educational scene—and a whole host of other subjects too numerous for me to mention. Quite apart from all those subjects, which cover such a wide political spectrum, there is plenty of other work to be done. For example, there has been no debate on the eight reports of the Sessional Committee on Procedure.
There has been no debate on the procedure for establishing the order of Oral Questions. The Lord President has welcomed the report, but we have not been able to discuss it. There has been no debate on the report on the order of preference of Private Members' Bills, which recommended no change, the tabling of Questions, access to the Table Office, the calling of amendments for Division at the end of a debate and the method of raising points of order during Divisions, which, I agree, is not the most important topic in the world but which should be debated. More important, we have had no debate on the report concerning voting on Opposition motions on Supply Days. I hope that, following recent events, the country is better informed about the disadvantages under which the Opposition labour in such circumstances.
There has been no debate on the business of the House on motions or on the report on Questions to the Prime Minister. We have not had the chance to discuss the operation of Standing Order No. 9, the eligibility of hon. Members successful in Ballots for notices of motions and Bills to take part in subsequent ballots or on the tabling of amendments to a Bill on the day it receives a Second Reading. I am sure that the Leader of the House will agree that that is quite a bad record.
Perhaps the worst omission is that we have had no debate on the report of the Procedure Committee. That is one of the most important reports produced by the House in recent years, and surely the events of last week should show how relevant is that report. I am not accusing anyone of collusion. I have no evidence of that and I believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt. It may have been convenient for the Government not to have had a vote the other day, but I have never accused the Lord President of collusion in that respect.
While I have little sympathy with the attitude towards defence of the hon. Members who undertook that parliamentary operation last week, I had a great deal of sympathy with them in exercising their rights as Members of Parliament. I have never denied that. Unfortunately, in exercising their rights they did away with the rights of the Opposition as Members of Parliament. There was a conflict of rights. That is all the more reason for us to get on with implementing the Procedure Committee's report because its proposals for Select Committees would prevent that sort of operation having to be mounted.
We have no written constitution. We have procedure, and, far from being dull and technical, it is the most important thing that we have in the House. I sympathise with my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury, who said that the Government do not dare to produce any legislation—and we understand the reason for that. I do not reproach them, because if we were in a similar position we would be equally coy. Why do they not take the opportunity of making this a great reforming Session for Parliament? We would then see the interest in the House revived among hon. Members and people outside. All that would be at the


price of no Socialist legislation—a price which one could pay with equanimity.
Parliament has never governed. It has never claimed to govern because that has not been the role of Parliament. Its role is to check and control the Executive and to protect the liberties of the subject against encroachment by Executive power. But we are no longer able to do that. That is the great reproach of the House of Commons. We have a professional Executive and an amateur Parliament. Hon. Members do not have the facilities to match the Executive which has developed and gone on into the latter part of the twentieth century while hon. Members are still struggling with a situation more suited to the nineteenth century.
One of our great disappointments is that the Lord President has not seized the opportunity to ensure that the procedures of the House are reformed. Nothing is more urgent. We have a great opportunity, and if we cannot have a debate before Christmas I hope that we shall have a debate immediately after we return.
My proposal is modest. It is that we should have a few more days of debate before we rise. That has met with great support from both sides of the House. The Secretary of State for Energy has made a much more radical proposal—namely, that we should do away with the five-year limit on Parliaments and go back, I assume, to the Septennial Act. It is extraordinary that the right hon. Gentleman, of all people, should be suggesting that Parliament should last longer. The cry of the radicals throughout the ages has been not for longer Parliaments but for shorter Parliaments. The Lord President will remember that the great cry of the Chartists was for annual Parliaments and elections. Even worse, members of the Labour Party want the annual reselection of parliamentary candidates. It is strange suddenly to see the suggestion that we should go back, perhaps to the Septennial Act of 1715, which was modified in 1911.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: What did Bagehot say about it?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: If the hon. Gentleman wants to know what Bagehot said about it. I can tell him.

Mr. Hugh Jenkins: Some other time, please.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: Very well. I refer the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Kilroy-Silk) to volume 4, chapter 5 of my work.
The Septennial Act is quite a good parallel because that Act, which the Secretary of State for Energy apparently wants to reintroduce, was passed to enable an unpopular Whig Government to keep out a popular Tory Opposition. We suspect that the same motivation is operating today. There is the further legal point that it is extremely doubtful whether a Parliament that is set up for five years can prolong itself as it wishes.
Perhaps we could have a debate on the House of Lords, which the Secretary of State for Energy has suggested should he abolished. That would be extremely foolish, because the House of Lords is an essential revising Chamber. We could not get through even the paucity of legislation from this Government without the aid of another place.
The House of Lords is a most effective revising Chamber and also has the great merit of being a place for hon. Members to go after they have given the best of their services here. We should encourage people to leave the House of Commons at an early opportunity in order to allow other people to serve in this place. It is not desirable to have hon. Members hanging on to an advanced age when they could give services of value to the nation in another place.
We could have a debate on the Labour programme for 1976.

Mr. Skinner: That no longer applies. We have just changed it all.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I agree that it no longer applies, but it has been replaced by something worse. The "Keep Britain Labour" campaign makes the Labour programme for 1976 look like a manifesto of the Primrose League. Events have marched on, unfortunately. The Prime Minister referred to that programme as an electoral albatross hanging round his neck. The Secretary of State for Energy, showing a capacity which he has not shown in increasing our fuel supplies, has incinerated that albatross. I might be mixing my metaphors, but it has risen like


a phoenix from the ashes. The situation is worse than ever before.
The Lord President is a reasonable being. I have the good fortune to have had dealings with him. I find him an eminently reasonable being—almost as reasonable as the Secretary of State for Education and Science, with whom I previously had dealings. The right hon. Lady was reasonable in another direction.
The Lord President would please the majority of hon. Members and dismay a minority if he said that he had listened to the arguments—I know that he has because, like myself, he has been here the whole afternoon—and said" Right. The House has made its wishes clear. We shall have an extra three days during which we shall debate some of the vital subjects which have been raised this afternoon."

7.51 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): I shall seek to reply to all the speeches, but if I replied to them fully I should inflict an appalling horror on the House. I do not wish to do that. I shall comment on most of the speeches. However, if I do not examine them all fully I hope that I shall not be accused of discourtesy. I shall try to reply roughly in the order in which the speeches were delivered. I shall begin with some of the earlier speeches, not because they have special eminence but because they belong together.
The hon. Members for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) and Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) and some of my hon. Friends referred to procedure. It is not, as the hon. Member for Canterbury implied, that there is no legislation this Session. Over the past month or so we have probably introduced more Bills than have been introduced in comparable periods. Most of the measures are much desired by particular groups of people, which is why they have been welcomed. Such Bills deal with merchant shipping, public lending right, education and Northern Ireland, for example.
Such legislation satisfies the legitimate demands of many groups in the country, as has been shown by the Second Reading debates on those measures. The sugges-

tion that the Front Bench is dictating to the House about what goes through and that there is not a series of important legislative measures coming forward is misconceived. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Canterbury gives credence to that suggestion.
My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) mentioned procedural matters. I hope that we shall have the long-awaited debate on the Civil Service report—for which he was primarily responsible as Chairman—in the first week that we return after the recess. My hon. Friend has pressed for such a debate on many occasions.
I hope that at an early date—but I cannot say that it will be in the first week —we shall have a debate on the Procedure Committee. The House should discuss that matter. I am not seeking to prevent that debate. Such a suggestion is misconceived. But it is right that the House shoud express its view on the Procedure Committee's report before the Government give their final views. I realise that that is not the normal procedure for all Select Committee reports. But it is right in this case. The Government must pay attention to the views of the House on this issue, as we must on all other matters.
I refer now to the questions raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South-West (Mrs. Wise), although these questions do not affect whether the House should rise at the suggested time. I do not pretend that my remarks will cover every aspect of the matter. My hon. Friend asked important questions about which there is anxiety, particularly on this side of the House.
My hon. Friend mentioned the negative order for the invalidity pension. My remarks in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Lyon), following questions from the Opposition Front Bench, were intended to convey not that the procedure of the House laid down that there would have to be a debate on the report from the National Insurance Advisory Committee, but that the Government would have to commit themselves to a debate. Since the matter was referred to the Advisory Committee," the negative procedure was exhausted and the Government had to give a commitment that there would be such a debate.

Mrs. Wise: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Foot: If I give way on each matter after I have given a brief reply to an important question, the proceedings could go on for a long time. I shall give way to my hon. Friend, but I hope other hon. Members will not assume that that is the procedure that I shall follow.

Mrs. Wise: My question is specific. I accept that there will be a debate, but will a vote have the effect of annulling the order? I cannot find an answer to that question.

Mr. Foot: Since the operation of the negative order procedure would be exhausted, the Government would have to make some provision so that if a vote upset the previous situation steps would be taken to make that effective. There have been occasions when the period of a negative order has been exhausted and the Government have made the necessary arrangements.
I gave my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Madden) an undertaking that we shall have a debate on television licences. That is a matter in which the House is interested. I hope that that debate will take place within the required period.
My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South-West raised another matter. I cannot comment on it in a way that could interfere with any Question that might be put tomorrow. I am not in a position to reply to my hon. Friend now about what appears in "Erskine May ". Since her speech I have not had the time to look up what "Erskine May" says about that matter.

Mrs. Wise: "Erskine May" says nothing about it.

Mr. Foot: "Erskine May" often does not mention such matters. "Erskine May" provides guidance for the House. It is not the final arbiter of what happens. That is a matter for Standing Orders.
If more than one of the motions on the Order Paper were to be called for debate tomorrow, a Government motion would have to be tabled to make that possible. Such a Government motion would be debatable before the proceedings began. I am not sure that that

would be the right way to proceed tomorrow. It would also be difficult for such a motion to specify one particular amendment, and several other hon. Members would wish to move their own amendments. It would involve a considerable alteration in the procedures which the House has found desirable.
I know that my hon. Friends and some hon. Members have urged that there should be a change in the procedure. These are matters which the Procedure Committee will be able to consider again. The official Opposition have a case. Their case is not of the same character as that of my hon. Friends, but it touches on the issue of how a motion should be called. I am not sure whether I or my hon. Friends will agree with the propositions that will come from the Opposition Front Bench, as there are other difficulties to take into account. I am not opposed to the issue being referred to the Procedure Committee, but that will not solve the problems of tomorrow's debate.
I turn to the intervention of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North (Mr. Fletcher). I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman has departed. If he has, I am not sure that I should make any further comment. The hon. Gentleman communicated with me before the debate started. I shall leave the hon. Gentleman's contribution aside, because he may return later.
The hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger) has already been answered by the Opposition Front Bench. The hon. Gentleman was answered so effectively that I do not think I should intervene in such a happy arrangement. It seems that the arrangements were made to accommodate the Opposition Front Bench. The timetable for discussion of the rate support grant from the Scottish point of view is no different from the arrangements that have been made on numerous occasions in the past.
I am happy not to be able to see the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow). Therefore, I am happy not to comment on what he had to say.
It seems that my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, 'West Derby (Mr. Ogden) has left the Chamber.

Mr. Ogden rose—

Mr. Foot: I apologise to my hon. Friend.

Mr. Ogden: I have moved to a place below the Gangway as a matter of convenience and not because of political conviction. As usual, I am right behind my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Foot: I am glad to give my hon. Friend the undertakings for which he asked, and almost in the terms that he requested. The Government are concerned to ensure that there is proper examination of the outer areas. Although we have had special reference to inner urban areas, that does not mean that we are opposed to a proper examination of the outer areas. I am prepared to give my hon. Friend the undertaking for which he was asking.
The hon. Member for North Angus and Mearns (Mr. Buchanan-Smith) put a question to me, but I understand that he has tabled a Question which will appear on tomorrow's Order Paper. I do not wish to anticipate the reply that he will receive.

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: My Question will not be reached.

Mr. Foot: Even if it is not reached tomorrow, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be given a most satisfactory answer in due course. It is not necessary for me to comment further upon it.
Several Opposition Members referred to fishing and fisheries. I recognise, as has been recognised in a whole legion of replies from Ministers, the importance of the topic. The Government understand the importance of the House having its final say.
I note that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North has returned to the Chamber. I appreciate that he raised an important issue. Since my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Employment announced on 28th September that arrangements would be made for the granting of work permits for overseas professional footballers, arrangements which were the subject of consultation with the football authorities and players' associations in England, Wales and Scotland, seven applications have been received. Three applications were approved, two were withdrawn, one was refused and one is under consideration. My hon.

Friend the Under-Secretary of State is now considering the further representations that he is receiving. He has invited the football authorities, including those in Scotland, to set out how they would like the work permit arrangements to be altered, if that is their wish. Any proposals that are made will be welcomed and will be considered most carefully.
The hon. Gentleman referred to Mr. Isak Refvik. I am advised that Mr. Refvik was admitted into this country on 29th November for one month on conditions prohibiting him from taking employment, paid or unpaid, or engaging in any business or profession. I believe that an application is being made for an extension of his leave to remain. The application will fall to be considered by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department. In the meantime, discussions will continue at the Department of Employment along the lines that I have already indicated.

Mr. Alexander Fletcher rose—

Mr. Foot: I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman, but if I give way to every hon. Member the debate will be extended so inordinately that I believe the House will become bored to tears.

Mr. Fletcher: I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman for being absent for a short time. Is he saying that the case of Isak Refvik is not closed and that his right hon. Friend will consider not merely his visitor's permit to the United Kingdom but his right to play football here?

Mr. Foot: I appreciate that the matter is one of considerable public interest in Scotland. The hon. Gentleman must consider the reply that I have given. If there are any further representations that he wishes to make, he should make them to the Department of Employment. As I said, consideration is being given to the case by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department.
My hon. Friend the Member for Swindon (Mr. Stoddart) took up the distressing story of what has happened to many of his constituents as a result of the closures that have taken place in Swindon. My hon. Friend indicated that considerable assistance has been given by the Minister of State, Department of


Employment in the light of his representations. He observed that it had been advantageous that the employment protection legislation applied. Even so, there is an extremely serious situation in my hon. Friend's constituency. It has not been possible to overcome the difficulties that face the firm to which he referred. My hon. Friend, who has so earnestly involved himself throughout, will no doubt be renewing his representations. I congratulate him, as I am sure does the whole House, on the diligent way in which he examines these issues. If there are any further representations that he is able to make, I shall be glad to hear them. Alternatively, he may make representations to the Department of Employment.
I note that the hon. Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Baker) is still in the Chamber. I shall not deal with all his remarks. I read with great joy his open letter in The Daily Telegraph. If anyone missed it, I am sure that he will enjoy hearing the hon. Gentleman's description of the state of his party. The hon. Gentleman addressed his letter to "Dear Peter". "Peter" is Lord Thorneycroft, the general manager of the Conservative Party. I am sure we all recognise the situation when the hon. Gentleman writes:
 At the moment the party"—
that is the Conservative Party—
 is rattled.
I am sure we all recognise that every word of the hon. Gentleman's article rings true. He continues:
 We were robbed of an October election, which I think we'd have won, and since then we've had the Ted and Margaret debate on economic policy; we've failed to win Berwick; we've had a bruising time on Rhodesia, and the polls are disappointing. Morale is not high.

Mr. Baker: Continue.

Mr. Foot: My hon. Friends will be able to read the rest of the article. The rest does not quite live up to the part that I have read, although it is still pretty good. I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity.

Mr. Baker: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for referring to the article and for having read it. I find it difficult to believe that he starts each day by browsing through The Daily Telegraph. However, knowing that the limits of poli-

tical education are boundless, I hope that he will quote from the rest of the article. The advice that I give to my party about its conduct until the next election is predicated not upon winning but on increasing its majority so that we have a workable majority when we win.

Mr. Foot: If I quote from the article I shall be had up for tedious repetition.
My hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn and Hatfield (Mrs. Hayman) raised the question of the Government's perinatal mortality policy. It is no good deceiving ourselves that further improvements in this area will come easily, and I am sure that she recognises that fact. That is why the Secretary of State for Social Services has called upon local health authorities to practise positive discrimination by devoting extra resources to these areas, and I am sure that that is a policy that is generally supported in the House. The reduction of perinatal mortality is not just a question of action by the Government or the National Health Service. I am sure that what my hon. Friend said will be taken into account by the DHSS.
The hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) has departed. He indicated that he possibly would have to leave, therefore I can omit my delicate comments on his remarks. I am sure that that will be mutually approved.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sower-by raised the question of the television licence. I do not think that it can be disputed that it is a form of poll tax.
On the question of the newspaper industry, I do not know whether another statement will be made before the recess on The Times or about the provincial newspaper dispute. I shall certainly discuss whether it is possible. The Secretary of State for Employment has intervened in the hope of being able to help in these matters generally.
The hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Smith) raised in a rather critical manner the question of the proposed abolition of vehicle excise duty. There will be a whole series of occasions on which this matter will be debatable in the House. In particular, there will be opportunities to discuss its application to disabled people. The Government gave advance information of what we


intend to do. All the bodies in the country will have every opportunity of discussing it. The proposals will be translated into legislative form and the House of Commons will be able to examine the matter in detail and pronounce its view. This is a living contradiction of the view expressed by the hon. Member for Canterbury that the House of Commons does not have a chance to deal with these matters.
My hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Jenkins) raised several matters. On the question of underspending of the amounts voted for the arts, I have not been able to identify the exact figure but expenditure in 1976ߝ77 did fall substantially short of the relevant cash limit in the arts field. There were a variety of reasons for this, prominent among them being the fact that 1976–77 was the first year in which cash limits applied. That is why spending bodies in general acted cautiously.
On his second point about the Public Lending Right Bill, I know that he has been a passionate supporter of the measure from the beginning. He remains devoted, as I am, to the Bill and we intend to see that it gets on to the statute book. It is deplorable that it is not there already, particularly in view of the general verdict in favour of it by the House of Commons. I had hoped that we would make further progress with the Bill on Thursday of this week but, unfortunately, we have had to postpone that consideration for a time. As soon as we return I hope that we shall make further progress. I concur with what my hon. Friend said. We should try to get the measure through in a single sitting because there is very little left to be discussed, but if we cannot we would have to consider a timetable motion. I hope that we shall be able to get the Bill through without such a motion.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ince (Mr. McGuire) raised the question of a general debate on regional policy. There is a strong case for this. However, I cannot give him an absolute guarantee. It is becoming all the more necessary that we should discuss the general principles applying here.
My hon. Friend's second major question referred to the submissions to the Boyle committee about Members' pay

and conditions. The Government will submit their views shortly and I shall take full account of what has been said today, just as I have taken account of the views put to me since the debate in July. I accept that there is strong feeling on this matter. The views of the House on these questions will be strongly represented. Hon. Members must be aware that they, too, can submit their arguments to the Boyle committee and I am sure that that committee will take full account of them.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Grocott) dealt with a number of matters which are the responsibility of the shocking Staffordshire Conservative authority. He is not in the House now—perhaps he has gone off already to deal with that authority, and if so I wish him luck.
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) raised the question of the Data Protection Committee's report which was published on 5th December—[HON. MEMBERS: "He is not here."] He is worth answering even when he is not here. He raised questions which provide the most valuable analysis for the problems arising from the handling of personal information on computers. The Home Secretary is coordinating the Government's considerations of the report. Before we reach any conclusions on the committee's recommendations we shall need to have the views of computer users and others who are affected. We welcome wide public discussion on so complex and important a subject.
I think that I have dealt with almost all the matters that were put forward�ž

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: The Leader of the House has not answered the very important matters that I raised. One dealt with the first phase of the nucleus hospital, which is likely to be delayed, and this is of considerable importance to my constituents. I also raised the matter of the interruption of a Member's duty by tile holding up of his post on behalf of constituents to an officer in the employ of the Cheshire county council. Will the Leader of the House comment on that?

Mr. Foot: I apologise to the hon. Member if I have neglected to deal with his points. On the first matter, I shall see


whether we can supply any further information beyond the kind of questions that it is open for him to put to the Minister concerned. On the second matter, I cannot reply now but I shall see whether it is possible for me to do so before we depart for the recess. It is a matter of continuing interest, and perhaps it can be dealt with at a later stage.
The hon. Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley) raised a wide question concerning capital punishment generally. I know that it arose from some recent events, and it was natural enough to raise it, but I do not think that it would be sensible for me to make a Government comment on it at this stage.
I apologise to any hon. Member who has put a case on which I have not been able to comment. May I say finally, to all those who have been kind enough to wait until these proceedings are brought to an end by my remarks, as I believe they will be, that it is misleading for people to spread the suggestion that the House of Commons is incapable of controlling the Executive. No doubt we must examine persistently how that control can be improved, but any suggestion that the Government can govern without Parliament is nonsense. Certainly there is no intention the part of this Government to do so.
That is why it was so wild and absurd for the hon. Member for Chelmsford to make the series of allegations that he made against my right hon. Friend the

Secretary of State for Energy, together with the suggestion that we want any Septennial Act or any such nonsense. It is perfectly true, as the hon. Gentleman said, that the Septennial Act led to the exclusion of the Conservatives from the Government of this country for about 40 or 50 years. On the whole, we prospered on that account, even though there were some other difficulties.

At the beginning of his remarks the hon. Gentleman quoted from "The Tempest ". As I looked across at him and those who support him I was reminded—particularly in these difficult times in which we live—of another scene at the beginning of "The Tempest ". The storm is blowing and the sailors are trying to bring things under proper control and to get the ship going in the proper direction. Then some fine gentlemen arrive on the scene, and the boatswain says to them:
 You do assist the storm.
A little later he adds:
Out of our way, I say.

That is my comment on the Conservative Party as a whole. Out of our way, I say, you do assist the storm. We shall get on with the business of managing if you do not interfere too much.

Question put:—

The house divided: Ayes 143, Noes 23.

Division No.21]
AYES
[8.22 p.m.


Anderson, Donald
Cox, Thomas (Tooting)
Horam, John


Archer, Rt Hon Peter
Crawshaw, Richard
Howell, Rt Hon Denis (B'ham, Sm H)


Armstrong, Ernest
Cryer. Bob
Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)


Ashley, Jack
Cunningham, Dr J (Whiteh)
Hoyle, Doug (Nelson)


Ashton, Joe
Davidson, Arthur
Huckfield, Les


Atkinson, Norman (H'gey, Tott'ham)
Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Hughes, Robort (Aberdeen N)


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Deakins, Eric
Hunter, Adam


Bates, Alf
Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)
Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)


Bean, R. E.
Doig, Peter
Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)


Beith, A. J.
Dormand, J. D.
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)


Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood
Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Johnston, Walter (Derby S)


Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)
Duffy, A. E. P.
Jones, Alec (Rhondda)


Bidwell, Sydney
Dunnett, Jack 
Judd, Frank


Bishop, Rt Hon Edward
English, Michael
Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Evans Gwynfor (Carmarthen)
Kerr, Russell


Boardman, H.
Evans, loan (Aberdare)
Kilroy-Silk, Robert


Boothroyd, Miss Betty
Evans, John (Newton)
Lamond, James


Boyden, James (Bish Auck)
Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.
Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)


Bradley, Tom
Flannery, Martin
Mabon, Rt Hon Dr J. Dickson


Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)
Foot, Rt Hon Michael
McElhone, Frank


Buchan, Norman
Forrester, John
MacFarquhar, Roderick


Butler, Mrs Joyce (Wood Green)
George, Bruce
McGuire, Michael (Ince)


Callaghan, Jim (Middleton amp; P)
Golding, John
MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor


Canavan. Dennis
Grant, John (Islington C)
Maclennan, Robert


Cant, R. B.
Grimond, Rt Hon J.
Madden, Max


Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)
Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Magee, Bryan


Cohen, Stanley
Harrison, Rt Hon Walter
Mallalieu, J. P. W.


Coleman, Donald
Heffer, Eric S.
Marks, Kenneth


Colquhoun, Ms Maureen
Home Robertson, John
Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)


Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)
Hooley, Frank
Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)




Maynard, Miss Joan
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Millan, Rt Hon Bruce
Ross, Rt Hon W. (Kilmarnock)
Walker, Terry (Kingswood)


Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Rowlands, Ted
Ward, Michael


Morris, Rt Hon Charles R.
Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)
Watkins, David


Morton, George
Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)
Weetch, Ken


Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King
Skinner, Dennis
Welsh, Andrew


Newens, Stanley
Snape, Peter
White, Frank R. (Bury)


Noble, Mike
Spearing, Nigel
Whitlock, William


Oakes, Gordon
Spriggs, Leslie
Willey, Rt Hon Frederick


Ogden, Eric
Stewart, Rt Hon M. (Fulham)
Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)


Orbach, Maurice
Stoddart, David
Williams, Alan Lee (Hornch'ch


Orme, Rt Hon Stanley
Stott, Roger
Wison, Gordon (Dundee E)


Owen, Rt Hon Dr David
Strang, Gavin
Wilson, William (Coventry SE)


Palmer, Arthur
Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)
Wise, Mrs Audrey


Park, George
Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)
Young, David (Bolton E)


Penhaligon, David
Thompson, George



Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)
Thorne, Stan (Preston South)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Rodgers, George (Chorley)
Tierney, Sydney
Mr. Ted Graham and


Rooker, J. W.
Tuck, Raphael
Mr. James Tinn.




NOES


Atkinson, David (B'mouth, East)
Hodgson, Robin
Smith, Timothy John (Ashfield)


Baker, Kenneth
Kilfedder, James
Sproat, lain


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Marten, Neil
Vaughan, Dr Gerard


Costain, A. P.
Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin
Winterton, Nicholas


Crouch, David
Montgomery, Fergus
Younger, Hon George


Dunlop, John
Page, John (Harrow West)



Eyre, Reginald
Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Glyn, Dr Alan
Rhodes James, R.
Mr. Alick Buchanan-Smith and


Hamilton, Archibald (Epsom amp; Ewell)
Smith, Dudley (Warwick)
Mr. Robert Adley.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House at its rising on Friday do adjourn till Monday 15th January and at its rising on Friday 23rd February do adjourn till Monday 5th March.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

(CONSOLIDATED FUND BILL)

Motion made, and Question proposed,

That, notwithstanding the practice of the House relating to the interval between the various stages of Bills of aids and supplies, more than one stage of the Consolidated Fund Bill may be proceeded with at this day's sitting. —[Mr. Walter Harrison.]

8.33 p.m.

Mr. Michael English: I am not sure which Minister is in charge of this motion. There seems to be no Treasury Minister present and the Leader of the House has gone.

Mr. Walter Harrison (Treasurer of Her Majesty's Household): I am here.

Mr. English: I apologise. The Deputy Chief Whip is apparently acknowledging his presence as a Treasury Minister. I want one who can speak. I want someone who can withdraw this motion.
This motion is a bit much after last Thursday's proceedings. We are now told— this is not an invariable procedure —that after we have dealt with the Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund

Bill—we were not allowed to have a discussion on the Supply resolutions upon which the Bill is founded—we must immediately proceed to Committee stage and Third Reading.
I should like an assurance from the Front Bench that the necessary notice of a Third Reading debate that must these days be given by six Members can be given, if this resolution is opposed, during the night. I should also like an explanation whether the Front Bench is proposing that the Committee stage should be meaningful instead of, as is normally the case, meaningless. Normally, we are prohibited—as in the case of the £23,000 million which was well aired last Thursday—from moving any amendments in Committee, such as one to delete "may" and insert "shall ".
I am glad to see that the Leader of the House has returned to discuss this matter. The point at issue is that this is a bit much in the light of all the present circumstances. I am sure that my right hon. Friend is aware of this. I am grateful for his assurance in his last speech that we shall now, at long last, be able to discuss, on the reports dealing with the Civil Service and procedure, the defectiveness of this procedure. But it is even more defective now.
There are 19 debates scheduled on the Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill. Because of a defect of my right hon. Friend's Parliamentary Secretary in


times past, those debates will not be heard by any member of the public. Certain members of the Press Association will not be present to report the proceedings. However, my right hon. Friend may not be aware that after about 11.30 or midnight tonight the BBC will not be present to record or broadcast our proceedings either.
This situation is caused solely by the inadequacies of my right hon. Friend's subordinates who objected to the desirability of a House of Commons broadcasting unit and wanted the BBC to be solely responsible for all broadcasting on the premises. As a result, ITV, which is not having an overtime ban, is not now allowed to broadcast our proceedings, simply because the Lord President's Parliamentary Secretary would not allow a feed to be produced by the House of Commons.
A very good example to us all is the way in which the Official Reporters are working up there. If there had been a House of Commons broadcasting unit, all the hon. Members who will speak on the Consolidated Fund Bill tonight would have been broadcast by ITV, even if not by the BBC.
Now, that will not happen. Tomorrow morning, when the overtime ban presumably is lifted and normal life resumes, when the BBC starts working again and of its grace permits ITV to work, those of my hon. Friends who have the nineteenth debate will have far more valuable time than those speaking in earlier debates.
That is quite improper and wrong. I suggest that my right hon. Friend curtails the Second Reading in the light of these circumstances, withdraws the motion and allows hon. Members to debate what they would have debated tonight on a subsequent day—in Committee or on Third Reading. That will not increase the time taken by the House, but it will enable my hon. Friends—I am not one of those who have taken part in this ballot: I am only trying to protect their interests—to speak at a time when they will be heard by their constituents. I plead with my right hon. Friend to withdraw the motion and let us proceed in that way.

8.38 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): I am sorry that I was absent for a minute or two when my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) began his speech, but I have been here since 3.30 this afternoon and I do not know whether that applies to him.

Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas: It applies to me.

Mr. Foot: I thought that the hon. Gentleman had flitted away for one precious moment—at any rate, we missed him.
I will certainly take into account what my hon. Friend says about how we should proceed on the Consolidated Fund Bill and its further stages, but I understand that the procedure recommended here is the procedure followed on a number of recent occasions and for a number of years past. Indeed, I recall that when there were more extensive discussions. than we had previously assumed to be likely, on the Consolidated Fund a year or two ago, that was under this same procedure.
I hope that my hon. Friend will let the motion go through now, because to withdraw it would raise difficult questions of how we should then be able to proceed. I give him the undertaking that before we come forward with another such motion on a future occasion I shall consider the problems and see whether we can approach the matter in a different way. I would not like to give any other undertaking without having looked at the matter. I hope, therefore, that my hon. Friend will allow the proposition to pass. What we are proposing is in accordance with the method customarily adopted for quite a number of years past.

Question put and agreed to.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS c.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern): With the leave of the House, I shall put together the Questions on the three motions relating to statutory instruments.

Ordered,

That the Fishing Boats (Faroe Islands) Designation (No. 3) (Variation) Order 1978 (S.I.,


1978, No. 1650) be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, c.

That the Fishing Boats (Specified Countries) Designation (No. 3) Order 1977 (Variation) (No. 2) Order 1978 (S.I., 1978, No. 1651) be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, c.

That the Sea Fishing (Specified Foreign Boats) Licensing (No. 3) Order 1977 (Variation) Order 1978 (S.I., 1978, No. 1652) be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, c.—[Mr. John Evans.]

WATER SERVICES CHARGES (REBATES)

8.42 p.m.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for rebates on water services (water rates) charges in respect of pensioners and low income families.

On 13th June this year I received permission to introduce a similar Bill, although at that time it had very little chance of becoming law. I hoped then that my action would draw this widespread problem to the Government's attention and that, having heard all the arguments and representation, the Government might themselves bring forward a Bill speedily to remedy it. So far there is no indication that the Government will be including this provision in their promised Water Bill. I therefore feel that I must try again to succeed with a Private Member's Bill to deal with the problem.

Since I raised the issue in the summer, I have had a large amount of correspondence from the North-West and other parts of the country, all pressing me to continue my campaign to get the Bill through.

The problem is simple. In recent years water charges have risen continually, and many people now suffer considerable difficulty in paying them. The increased charges are partly due to general inflation but also to the way in which the water authorities were reorganised in 1972. They no longer are under democratic control. They have established bureaucracies for themselves, and those who have been appointed by Ministers to supervise these undertakings have on the whole opted for excellence of service rather than considered how much people can afford to pay.

In the long run it may be a good idea for the water authorities to invest heavily in better water collection systems, in improving sewage disposal and in carrying out massive schemes to replace old sewers. However, I believe that the authorities must consider the ability of consumers to pay. I received a steady stream of letters from local industry in Stockport complaining about the increase in water charges. If complaints are coming from that direction, it is no wonder that individual consumers on low incomes are suffering real hardship.

In letter after letter it has been pointed out to me by constituents that they have general rates amounting to about £120 to £130. When the general rate rebate system applies, they have to pay sums of between £15 and £20. Yet those people are receiving demands for the water service charge—most people know it as the water rate—of about £30 to £35. That means a weekly outlay of between 70p and 80p. In other words, people are having to pay water and sewerage charges twice as high as they pay for all the other services they get from local government. That is most unsatisfactory.

The letters I receive point out not only that my constituents cannot afford to pay the water rate but that they use very little water compared to many of their neighbours. That applies particularly to pensioners living alone whose water consumption is small. They may well hear tanks in the houses next door almost continually gurgling as people use automatic washing machines and, with a family with three or four children, run a large number of baths, or perhaps hose the garden in the summer or wash the family car. Those who find it difficult to pay their water rate feel considerable resentment that they use so much less water than many of their neighbours.

In a recent parliamentary answer, the Government recognised that people are having difficulty in paying their water rate. However, the Government's only response so far is to urge water authorities to encourage payment by instalments or by the purchase of stamps. I applaud these schemes, which help those who find it difficult to save or those who are poor managers. However, those schemes do little or nothing to help people who cannot afford to pay the bills, whether presented in instalments or in one lump sum.

Such people need a reduced bill which takes into account their ability to pay. When the general rate rebates were introduced, they were not extended to water rates because at that time they were small. Water rates tended to be lower than £5, although at that time the system applied to sewerage charges since those services were then provided by local authorities. One of the disadvantages in 1974 was that when the reorganised water authorities came into being the rebate on sewerage charges was lost.

I suggest that there is an overwhelming case for saying that the water rate has become so large that the general rate rebate scheme should be extended to cover water rates or, as they are now called, water service charges. This can be undertaken in one of two ways. It can be done either by slightly increasing other water charges so that one section of water users are subsiding those who are most in need—which would be at no cost to the Government and, although not the fairest way of going about the matter, would represent a considerable improvement—or, preferably, by the Government giving grants to water authorities to cover the rebate in the same way as at present the Government give local authorities grants covering general rate rebate.

I hope that the House will agree to the introduction of the Bill. Indeed, I trust that hon. Members will support it not only now but through its remaining stages, so that it will become law in order to relieve the hardship of those who have to pay water service charges. I beg to ask leave to introduce the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Andrew F. Bennett, Mr. George Rodgers, Mr. Max Madden, Mr. Brian Sedgemore, Mr. Robert Kilroy-Silk, Mr. Frank Allaun, Mr. Mike Noble, Mr. Terry Walker and Mr. James Lamond.

WATER SERVICES CHARGES (REBATES)

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett accordingly presented a Bill to provide for rebates on water services (water rates) charges in respect of pensioners and low income families: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 19th January and to be printed [Bill 45].

CONSOLIDATED FUND BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

KIRKBY MANUFACTURING AND ENGINEERING COMPANY

8.48 p.m.

Mr. Nick Budgen: I am most grateful for the opportunity to raise the subject of the Kirkby co-operative under Class IV, I of the Civil Estimates dealing with regional support and regeneration.
I wish to deal with this subject more in sorrow than in anger. The story of the Kirkby co-operative, referring back to the period of the second General Election of 1974, is a classic example of the way in which the Government have tried by State subsidy to preserve jobs. In addressing myself to this problem I wish to express my sorrow for the 700-odd people who since 1974 have been so unhappily misled into believing that State subsidy is an alternative to profitable employment in the private sector.
I also add to my sorrow an element of sympathy and support for the Government. There is no doubt that the present Government have learnt by their mistakes. First, 1 pray in aid the Hansard report of yesterday's proceedings, where it is plain from the answers given by the Under-Secretary of State for Industry, the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Huckfield), to my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) that the interim assistance given to Kirkby Manufacturing and Engineering Ltd has ceased. It is further plain from the full report in The Guardian of today that the Minister of State faced the workers in KME yesterday in a very firm though sympathetic manner. Indeed, so admirable was his attitude towards the workers, and so firm his resolve to explain to them the inexorable movements of markets and economic forces, that he had the misfortune at one stage to find, as the fourth column of the report says, that
 In contributions from the floor, Mr. Williams was accused of being a Tory and there was loud applause for claims that the


Government was no longer Labour. Workers stressed that their prime concern was jobs.
The present Administration have come a long way since the high and happy days of December 1974, but I hope that I shall not be considered to be crowing over past mistakes if I invite the House to consider for a brief moment this graveyard of reputations.
The first grant of just under £4 million was made at the end of 1974. The House will recollect that it was a controversial grant. It was given against the express advice of the Industrial Development Advisory Board. It gave rise to the senior civil servant who was then in the Department of Industry letting it be known that he had filed a minute to the effect that he, too, disagreed with this discretionary grant. Most important of all, it was expressed to be a once-for-all grant.
Indeed, on 4th August 1975 my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Mailing (Mr. Stanley) asked the Secretary of State for Industry
 whether it is still the case that the grant to Kirkby Manufacturing and Engineering Ltd. of £3·9 million announced on 1st November 1974 is aid that is strictly once and for all."—[Official Report, 4th August 1975; Vol. 897, c. 7.]
He received a written reply from the then Minister of State, Department of Industry, who said very firmly in reply to that Question "Yes ". Therefore, it was strictly once and for all.
One would have thought then that the Government's credibility in the sensitive and difficult area of discretionary grants to industry would be very much on the record as a result of those promises. Unhappily, however, it did not work out that way and a second substantial grant of £860,000 was made in April 1977. Again it was a grant which was made against the express advice of the IDAB.
The matter does not end there. The workers' co-operative has had £680,000 of temporary employment subsidy. In the hope that either Steelrad or perhaps Worcester Engineering would at some time take this embarrassing problem away, an interim subsidy of about £200,000 was paid until yesterday's announcement.
If there is any hope for the Government's industrial strategy, if State intervention is any substitute for profitable private industry, the unhappy 700 workers

in the Kirkby co-operative can congratulate themselves on having had every support from this Administration. The fact is that State subsidy is no substitute for profitable private industry.
The disagreeable pasting that the Minister of State must have had yesterday—I dare say that a lot will be said tonight, admittedly mainly for the consumption of local newspapers —is an indication of how sadly the Government have learnt from the pressure of events. Unhappily, there is no alternative now to allowing the assets of Kirkby Manufacturing and Engineering Ltd. to be taken over by the receiver.

Mr. Robert Kilroy-Silk: Of course there is an alternative. There are many choices. No doubt some will be pressed upon the Government today by myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer). But let me take the hon. Gentleman up on his earlier point, when he said that a co-operative was no substitute for private enterprise. The co-operative was and has for the past five years been just that. If the hon. Gentleman had taken the trouble to look at the background he would have found that there had been no fewer than five previous owners of that factory, all of whom failed. They had substantial experience behind them, but none of them could provide the continuity and permanence of employment necessary in that area, and out of that situation grew the cooperative.

Mr. Budgen: I am sure the hon. Gentleman will speak in the debate later and make his point more fully. I do not intend to give way often in what I hope will be a short intervention. What I said —I must underline it—was that State subsidy was no alternative to profitable private industry. I am neutral on the question of co-operatives. If people wish to form their own co-operatives and to carry on trading in that way that is splendid. It has absolutely nothing to do with the State what people do in setting up partnerships or limited companies with which to trade. I was not trying to cast any doubt upon the co-operative organisation or principle.
In passing, it should be pointed out that although this was described as a cooperative it could hardly fairly be described as a co-operative in the sense


that the share capital was both owned and provided by the workers. Only a nominal amount of the share capital was provided by the workers. Over 99 per cent. of the share capital was provided by the State.
Perhaps I put the argument somewhat firmly in saying that there was no alternative. There are impractical, unsatisfactory alternatives. But, to put the matter more accurately, I suggest that there is now only one satisfactory and honest alternative.
Unhappily, the receiver has to do his business. I say "unhappily", because he is an official of the court who has to act according to clearly circumscribed discretions. He is not subject to political pressure. He cannot be subject, as can the NEB, to pressure here in Parliament. His guidelines are not even subject to discussion, as the NEB's guidelines are. He is subject to the law and must carry out the law. That does not mean that the company's assets, or even the work force, will be dissolved. The receiver's desire will be to obtain the best price for the assets. But his overwhelming obligation towards the work force and the company will be to try to sell it as a going concern.
Of course, after the unhappy way in which the 700 or so men have been so grievously misled, partly by the present Government, but partly by their constituency Member of Parliament, it is very much to be hoped that the receiver will be able—

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: The hon. Gentleman has made a serious allegation. I have no doubt that it was a slip of the tongue, but it was the kind of thing he habitually does. Perhaps he would like to think again about his statement that the constituency Member of Parliament—I am he—misled the workers. That is a serious allegation. If the hon. Gentleman can back it up with evidence, perhaps he will do so now. If he cannot, perhaps on reflection he would like to withdraw it.

Mr. Budgen: I used carefully and advisedly the word "misled", because the work force has been led to believe that State support will be forthcoming and will provide them with continuity of employment. It demonstrably has not provided them with continuity of employment.
The alternative of possibly attempting even to order the NEB to make an investment is not open. The NEB has made it plain that it does not have the managerial resources to manage any investment in the company. Further, it has made it plain that it has the gravest doubts as to the viability of this commercial operation. Most of all, although it is admittedly asking for a vast increase in its funds, the NEB is trying to run its business as a good picker of commercial situations. Therefore, if through political interference the NEB were forced to make an investment, that would go against the whole philosophy that has currently evolved within the NEB.
It is also plain that the two previous companies which have suggested that in certain circumstances they might take over the assets and work force of Kirkby Manufacturing and Engineering Ltd. have backed off, because they say that unless and until the receiver does his work there is not the necessary calm situation and co-operation from the work force. If the receiver does his business, Steelrad or Worcester Engineering may well come forward with further offers.
I conclude as I began, on a note of considerable sorrow for the 700 men who have been—I do not resile from this—so grievously misled. They have chased a myth, the myth that State support can be their support indefinitely. The present Government are courageously biting on the bullet and explaining to them that State support cannot go on for ever.
In heaven's name, enough State support has been given to this co-operative. If the present Government are ever to be able to tell any firm "This is the end. This is once and for all ". they must, unhappily, say it in this situation. If they cannot say it now to this co-operative in Kirkby, and perhaps later to Meriden and even to British Leyland after that, they will never be able to say it.

9.5 p.m.

Mr. Robert Kilroy-Silk: I have never heard a more unconstructive, unhelpful and unhappy speech than that delivered by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen). He said that he was not crowing, and yet that was precisely the tenor of his speech.
We have a serious problem here. It is not a matter for crowing or criticism. We are dealing with 700 men and their families. Their livelihood, and in many cases the livelihood of an entire town, is at stake. This is an extremely important and sensitive issue. It ill behoves the hon. Gentleman to come here to make party points. I hope that the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) will not follow his hon. Friend's example, as he has done in the past. I hope that he has learnt his lesson.
I have lived with this problem almost on a daily basis for nearly five years. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State has done the same for the past 18 months. I have been in virtual daily contact with the two senior shop stewards, Jack Spriggs and Dick Jenkins. I pay tribute to what they have done. They have played a significant role in the events of the past five years. It is largely as a result of their efforts that 760 men and women have remained in employment. I have the authority of Jack Spriggs and Dick Jenkins to say that we are extremely grateful for what the Government have done. That may not tie up with what I shall be saying later, but it is important to get on the record that I, as the constituency Member, the workers at the factory, those in local government and many other local organisations in the town are grateful for the £3·9 million once-for-all grant given by the then Secretary of State in 1974.
The then Secretary of State, now my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy, embarked upon what many of us regard as a revolutionary, courageous and imaginative experiment. We in Kirkby owe him and the Government a great deal of gratitude. We are thankful for the additional amount of temporary employment subsidy which the cooperative received and for the £860,000 given on the authorisation of the present Secretary of State for Industry in 1977.
Although it may not look like it from today's vantage point, we were appreciative of the Government's decision—reluctant as they were—to accept the suggestion made by Jack Spriggs and Dick Jenkins that a working party be set up to look into the available options open to KME. That was a suggestion made in September and one which I know

the Minister of State was initially reluctant to accept.
As the Opposition never tire of pointing out—no doubt they will do so tonight—we have received a great deal of money. But we have to put that alongside the money that would necessarily and inevitably have been spent by the Government had the co-operative not been saved in 1974. I refer to the figures given by the Minister of State, which are slightly larger than those which I would have quoted. He said that if the co-operative had not been in existence there would have been a total of £9 million to £10 million paid out of public funds in unemployment pay and social security benefits for the 700 people, on the assumption that they would not have found alternative employment.
Given the high level of unemployment in Kirkby and on Merseyside generally, it is unlikely that many of those people would have found alternative employment. The long-term unemployment figures for Merseyside demonstrate that. Even if all the workers had found alternative and immediate employment, that would have reduced the limited number of jobs available on Merseyside, so that the total number of unemployed would have remained the same and the amount of money expended would have been identical.
Having said that, however, it is also fair to point out some of the background and the history of the co-operative. It is not true to say, as the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West said and as has been said on many occasions in the press, that the co-operative has failed. That is not true. It has not failed. Even if it goes into liquidation or receivership tomorrow or next week—which God forbit—it will not be a failure which can be attributed either to the worker-directors or to the work force, or, indeed, to the concept of a co-operative.
The problems that it faces are not a criticism, and should not be taken as implied criticism, of the validity of the co-operative ideal. The workers at Kirkby, at KME, have demonstrated quite clearly, through five very hard, long and difficult years, that they can run a factory and that they can take unpalatable and unpopular decisions. Without the benefit of any training, experience or adequate


managerial expertise, guidance or advice, and thrown into the front line at a moment's notice, they proved that they can take the kind of decisions that are necessary and run a factory in a way that many people, particularly those on the Tory Benches opposite, have always denied was possible. What the workers at Kirkby have demonstrated is that there is a willingness and a capacity to involve themselves in the running of industry and, therefore, in the working of industrial democracy in the real sense.
They have kept in employment more than 700 people who would not otherwise have been employed. In the context of a 20 per cent. unemployment rate in Kirkby and a 13 per cent. unemployment figure on Merseyside as a whole, that is no mean achievement. Indeed, it is a very significant and honourable contribution that those worker-directors, the Government and the workers themselves have made.
There were enormous obstacles faced by the co-operative from the beginning. Given the obstacles that were in the way, and which have continued to be encountered throughout the existence of the co-operative, it is remarkable, to say the least, that it has survived for so long. To begin with, it was under-financed. Much has been made, and no doubt much will be made during this debate, of the £3·9 million once-for-all grant given in 1974. Yet, if we look at the evidence given by officials from the Department of Industry to the Public Accounts Committee on 17th May 1976, we find that the then permanent secretary, Sir Peter Carey, admitted that the initial grant was not sufficient for its purpose. I quote from paragraph 2673, in which he says, in an answer to a question from myself as to whether the £3·9 million was enough:
 It was what we calculated at the time was a reasonable figure to provide".
Yet a senior official from the same Department, on the same day and in the next paragraph but one, a Mr. Lippitt, said:
It was in practice the figure that the cooperative put forward. The Department did draw attention to the fact that insufficient allowance had probably been made for inflation in arriving at this figure.
Therefore, in the circumstances when the co-operative was starting up—and we

knew that there would be very heavy losses at the beginning—the provision of working capital was probably insufficient.
There seems to be some conflict of evidence there. On the one hand we have the permanent secretary to the Department of Industry, Sir Peter Carey, saying that it was what had been calculated as a reasonable figure at the time, and then Mr. Lippitt, a senior official in that Department, 10 seconds later on the same day, saying that they had understood that they had made insufficient allowance for inflation and for heavy losses right at the very beginning.
In other words, the Department accepted, even when it was negotiating the grant to be paid to the co-operative, that the £3·9 million would not be sufficient to form the basis of a viable enterprise and permanent employment at the site. It is therefore not surprising that the cooperative ran into financial difficulties. It was, rather remarkably, allowed to go ahead on too narrow a financial base. There is an important lesson in that for the Department and the Government.
The co-operative faced other obstacles apart from the admitted and accepted under-financing and under-capitalising. From the beginning it started life with a major handicap. Some of the other obstacles have been pointed out in the report of the working party on KME which was published in November this year. The large and embarrassing size of the factory was one obstacle. It has an extremely impressive site. The working party pointed out that it is the same area as five football pitches.
The working party and the officials giving evidence to the PAC pointed out that there would always be large and crippling overheads which the co-operative had no way of dealing with effectively or eliminating. Mr. Lippitt told the PAC:
 it would be better for the co-operative if they had a smaller plant more suitable for this kind of work rather than a very large plant for heavy press work.
It was suggested to him that that was not an option open to the co-operative. He replied:
 They inherited it in just the same way as they inherited the fruit juice and the radiators. They inherited the plant.
It is important that all this should be placed clearly on the record. The Department's official went on to pay tribute


to the workers. The House should remember that this was in May 1976 and that the co-operative had effectively come into existence early in 1975. I asked Sir Peter Carey whether he would accept that the work force had shown in the previous two years a dedication, enthusiasm and entrepreneurial spirit that had been a great credit to the work force and to the idea of a co-operative. Sir Peter replied:
 Yes. I think that I did pay tribute to that in my initial remarks about it.
I asked Sir Peter whether he would pay tribute to the way they had searched for new markets, introduced new products and even been more ruthless than a trade union in reducing its manpower. He answered:
 Yes, I think we accept all that.
I suggested that the problems that the cooperative faced were inherited and that it had made its own successes. I asked whether Sir Peter agreed, and he replied "Certainly."
It is important that those comments should be put on the record because at that time there was none of the criticism of the co-operative that we hear rumoured and leaked from various sources and repeated by the media and the enemies of any radical or innovatory idea, particularly one which helps the unemployed. There was certainly none of the criticisms that we are likely to hear from the Opposition tonight. There was no criticism of the co-operative, the worker-directors and the way in which they had worked or of the work force.
Indeed, the whole tenor and tone of the evidence given by people who knew exactly what was going on in the co-operative and who were monitoring it on a more or less daily basis was related to the difficulties that the work force faced. The emphasis was on the difficulties—which were not of the workers' making —involved in the inhibiting, hostile environment which made the success of the venture difficult, if not unlikely.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: The hon. Member rightly stresses the insuperable difficulties which the co-operative faced from the beginning. He has mentioned the under-capitalisation and the over-large premises with excessive overheads. Perhaps he will talk about the

bizarre product range which was never rationalised. Those matters are well known and they were good reasons for explaining to the work force that the project was ill based from the beginning.
The hon. Member and other advocates of the workers' co-operative, including the worker-directors, have spent the last five years waving these difficulties aside. It ill befits the hon. Member now to say that the workers have achieved a remarkable amount, given the insuperable difficulties which they faced. The hon. Member is largely responsible for dismissing the advice that was given and for money being invested because these difficulties were ignored.
How does the hon. Member answer the charge that he misled the workers by playing down the difficulties in the last five years? Only now does he discover those difficulties, when the end has come and £5 million of taxpayers' money is invested in a doomed enterprise.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: The hon. Member is wrong. I have not just discovered those difficulties. We all knew about them from the beginning. The quotations that I have just given were over two and a half years old. They were remarks made in reply to my questions. That does not mean that we run away from difficulties. We have faced the difficulties and have attempted to overcome them.
If the hon. Member for Rushcliffe represented a constituency such as mine and he occasionally saw some of the ravages of unemployment, he would also feel that, even when facing the impossible, every conceivable measure to protect and preserve unemployment should be taken. That is so even when the situation is difficult and the prospects of success are slim. It is important to take the chance. I do not minimise the difficulties. I was as aware of them as anybody else.
Tonight is the first opportunity that I have had to put the facts on the record. One of the handicaps under which I, the work force and the two worker-directors have constantly laboured in the last two and a half years or more, when we have known ourselves to be in difficulties, is that we have had to be content, when trying to bring in other companies and trying to achieve additional assistance from the Government, to operate behind closed doors. All this has had to be done in a


discreet and quiet fashion. Had there been a public hint of any problem or difficulty, or had I or any of my colleagues mounted a "Rescue KME" campaign, the creditors would have been at the door and the company would have moved to receivership and liquidation.
I am well aware of the problems. I have lived with them daily. I have tried to operate strategically in the interests of the co-operative. I defy either the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West or the hon. Member for Rushcliffe to substantiate the claim that either I or the Government have in any sense misled the work force. One cannot be accused of misleading people who have been in employment for four years and more who would not have been in employment if it were not for the decision taken by the work force and the Government then and since. Tonight is another story. Perhaps we shall hear the story later.
The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West talked about the amount of State money involved. The expression, "State money" is a "big brother" ideal which often lurks behind the hon. Member's innuendoes and nuances. He complains that public money is used to prop up such industries. He did not refer to the £12 million a day which allegedly is being poured into the so-called profitable sector of private enterprise.
It is all very well for the hon. Gentleman to complain about the amount of public money that has gone into my constituency to preserve jobs. However, he does not turn the same critical gaze on the larger amounts of public money —his money, my money and everybody else's money—that go into his allegedly profitable private enterprise.
The co-operative faced the difficulties that I have enumerated. It was not the first to face those difficulties. If it is to go into liquidation for receivership, it will not be the first to fail to overcome the difficulties. The hon. Gentleman's much-vaunted private enterprise has faced the same sort of difficulties. There were other concerns before the cooperative with far more capital behind them, far more industrial, commercial and financial experience and far more management ability at their disposal which failed, and failed dramatically, at

the same site after producing the same sort of products.
The factory was built in 1960 by Fisher Ludlow. It made a loss and it was sold to Parkinson Cowan Limited in 1968. Further losses were made and Parkinson Cowan sold it to Thorn Electrical Industries in 1971. After further losses, the site was sold to International Property Development Limited in 1972. After that concern had made losses, it went into receivership in 1974. Therefore, the track record of private enterprise on the site is not a testimony to the efficiency, entrepreneurial flair, spirit of adventure or managerial competence of private industry.

Mr. Budgen: The hon. Gentleman must understand that private industry aims for success but that failure is an inevitable part of the entrepreneurial system.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: That is a callous, hard-hearted and ruthless attitude. It is not an attitude that I share. There are too many of my constituents on the dole for me to take the hon. Gentleman's attitude and to say that everything has to be balanced in the books of profit and loss. I have never accepted that sentiment or ideology. If I did, I should be sitting in the same part of the House as the hon. Gentleman. I have not accepted that attitude, and neither has the hon. Gentleman's party when it has been in Government.
The Conservative Party may make certain noises when in Opposition, but more than half of the employment in my constituency depends upon Government grants, subsidies and loans. That employment has been so dependent during not only the lifetime of the present Government but during the lifetime of the previous Conservative Administration and the two previous Administrations.
The hon. Gentleman is advancing an easy political argument but it is not one that his party has carried out in practice. A significant proportion of employment in assisted and development areas exists only because of public money and Government intervention.
It may be that I am being over-sensitive and that criticisms may be made of the co-operative. All I am saying is that we should not blame the co-operative, the


ideal of the co-operative or the work force for what has gone wrong and for what has been generally endemic to the site because of its size and location.

Mr. Budgen: The hon. Gentleman, who understands the market argument, surely appreciates that no blame necessarily is attached to failure within a market system. For the sake of argument, the ostlers who ran the coaches were not to blame because their form of transport became unfashionable. I am making no allegations against the co-operative. I am sure that the workers made an honourable attempt to succeed. No moral opprobrium attaches to them in failure. All that has happened is that reality has eventually caught up with the co-operative.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: It will catch up with the hon. Member, and it will be a very sad and sorry sight when it does.
Not only did the co-operative lack adequate finance at the beginning and labour under insuperable difficulties throughout its existence. It also lacked proper advice and guidance from the outset. No advice was given to the work force on the setting up of a co-operative. No help came from the trade union movement. In that sense, perhaps the hon. Member has a point. If he is being contrite about the cooperative and talking about men there as "honourable ", I would have welcomed his support during the past five years. But to be fair to him I must be fair to my colleagues, and it is true that the co-operative has only now, when it is in the news, become a bandwagon on which people quickly jump for whatever motive. Only now are we getting the support that should have been expected all along from the trade union and Labour movement.
Let it be said, however unpopular it may be and however many people it may offend, that the workers at Kirkby, facing enormous problems, have never received from the so-called international brotherhood of the trade union and Labour movement the kind of support in financial terms or in advice that they normally would have expected. It does no credit to the Labour and trade union movement generally that it has stood very largely on the sidelines when its help was needed most. I speak specifically about the offer of financial assistance which could and should have been forthcoming from some

of our larger trade unions, many of whose members work at the company.
It would not have hurt a lot of our richer companies or the co-operative movement itself to have helped with some financial assistance. Had this been done at the appropriate time, it is possible that we would not be having this debate tonight and that the co-operative would not be in dire straits.

Mr. Leslie Spriggs: Is my hon. Friend aware that he has more friends in the House than he appreciates? Some years ago when private enterprise failed at the factory, a number of my constituents who were employed there appealed to me to support some form of Government grant to keep the factory going. I agreed because the Merseyside area had suffered from the growing disease of unemployment. When faced with constituents without an opportunity for alternative employment, one is prepared to try as hard as they are to retain the employment. I gave all the weight I could to the setting up of the co-operative. I am proud of the support that we got, and I am proud of the Minister who put it into operation. I hope that the Government will offer the same kind of money to the co-operative as they were prepared to offer to private enterprise to take over the firm.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens (Mr. Spriggs) is here. It is true that he and other Merseyside colleagues have assisted enormously on this project. Over the years he has certainly spoken vigorously with Ministers on many occasions in putting the case for the Kirkby co-operative. Certainly my hon. Friend is not a Johnny-come-lately.
I was referring to organisations outside the House, Unfortunately, it is a fact that there are many trade unions and trade union leaders who have not given the help for which they were specifically asked. Perhaps now that we have a new general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union he will be more helpful and charitable than were others in the past.
It is also true to say that we have not had the kind of help we expected from many of our other colleagues in the Labour movement on Merseyside—not in


the House. My hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens well knows that there are many of our colleagues outside the House whose support we would have expected but who have quietly, behind the scenes, been some of the co-operative's most vociferous critics. The co-operative, its work force and its worker-directors have, right from the beginning, been very largely left to their own devices and told to get on with the job as best they can, without any adequate background experience or advice.
I know that it is not the job of the Department of Industry to go round setting up co-operatives. I know that it may not have the facilities and the resources to provide the kind of skill and professional ongoing assistance and advice which are necessary in a case such as this, but my right hon. Friend the Minister of State will surely agree that one cannot set up a co-operative, in the circumstances of a sit-in, without then going on to provide a fine back-up of facilities, advice and guidance in terms of how a co-operative should be set up and function, and also—in many ways much more important—the managerial aspects of the enterprise.
Yet in spite of all those difficulties the co-operative still exists. There are 760 people still employed, and they have a 10 per cent. stake now in the United Kingdom market for central heating radiators.
There are several options before us which the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West did not seem to know about. There is the option which was put forward by the co-operative sometime in September, and put to the Government, based upon the report of PA Consultants, asking for an injection of a further £2·9 million of Government aid, on its estimate that the co-operative would become viable within two to three years. PA Management Consultants is an eminently respectable organisation and is frequently used by the Government, not least recently in conducting a survey of employment prospects on Merseyside, ironically. PA Management Consultants clearly believes—although I know that the Government disagree—that the co-operative could become viable and profitable certainly within two to three years, with an injection of £2·9 million of Government money and with improved management. That option was turned down.
We then had the working party, which was the suggestion of the worker-directors. The working party reported that Worcester Engineering should take over the co-operative. That company has now walked away from the specific proposal. Worcester Engineering was recommended as being the most appropriate private firm, with a substantial amount of Government assistance, to take over the co-operative and run it as a private enterprise concern. It has now decided that it should not involve itself in that enterprise.
Again, it has been said—perhaps it will be said tonight—that the working party recommended Worcester Engineering and that the workers at the co-operative had agreed in advance to accept the recommendations of the working party, whatever those recommendations might be. It could therefore be argued that the cooperative had a moral obligation to accept that Worcester Engineering would be taking over.
But, given all that, I do not think that one has therefore necessarily to go on and say that the work force at KME must accept every single condition or, indeed, any of the conditions or a major part of the conditions that Worcester Engineering laid down for taking over the factory. There are still matters for negotiation, whether it be over who is to be made redundant, at what time and on what terms, or what hours are to be worked. There are a number of other factors which are of legitimate concern and matters for negotiation between the work force and the putative new owner of the factory.
The fact that the two sides could not come to an agreement is perhaps unfortunate and regrettable, particularly given the alternative which may face a co-operative and its work force. But it should not be said that the 'workers, because they are facing a bleak future, have to lie on their backs with their legs in the air and say "Hail, Worcester Engineering ", regarding it as a great saviour and accepting every single condition that the company wishes to impose upon it. Clearly, that would not be acceptable, either to me or to the work force. Although the working party put that forward as its favourite option, its implied favourite option was really a takeover by the National Enterprise Board.
Paragraph 4.19 of the working party's report states:
 We note that the Secretary of State for Industry has powers under the 1975 Industry Act to direct the NEB on matters which include ' the maintenance and development of any industrial undertaking.' However, given our own reasons for opposing the provision of further funds by the Department of Industry and the doubts of the NEB, we are advised that the Secretary of State for Industry is most unlikely to use his powers of direction in this matter.
It goes on to say:
 Nevertheless, we believe that KME can survive and become profitable, despite all the difficulties.
The end of paragraph 4.21 states:
 We did, however, feel that, even if a private sector company took a controlling interest in KME, there were considerable advantages in maintaining the cooperative at Kirkby in some form.
I would have thought that it was fairly clear to anyone making a close reading of the report that the working party was precluded by the intimations that it received from the NEB—we know what those were—and by the advice that it received from the Secretary of State. In fact, the members of the working party have said privately that their preferred option was for the NEB to take over KME. But they could not adequately consider that because it was made clear to them that even if that was what they recommended it just was not on.
To me, that is one of the depressing aspects of this whole affair. The NEB has not done very much for Merseyside. In fact, compared with its equivalents the Scottish and Welsh Development Agencies, and given our employment problems, the NEB on Merseyside is a very shabby, shoddy enterprise indeed.
Here was one area where it could have done something imaginative and constructive, where it could have taken over a company in one of the three areas of highest unemployment in Great Britain—Sunderland, Skelmersdale and Kirkby. Here we have a co-operative which needs exactly the kind of resources which I thought the NEB was created to provide and which it certainly has at its disposal. Here we have 700 jobs which are threatened in an area where there is 20 per cent. male unemployment. One would have hoped and expected that the NEB would take a more radical posture in this

instance and show a commitment to Merseyside and Kirkby which it has not shown so far. Yet it failed to do so.
It is also distressing that the Secretary of State feels that he is unable to instruct the NEB to take over the co-operative. It is no good the Minister of State saying tonight, as he may do—because he has said it on other occasions—that the NEB does not have the managerial competence. I accept that. But PA Management Consultants has, and in its submission in September of this year PA Management Consultants offered to provide requisite and appropriate management for KME either if the Government put in £2·9 million or, indeed, if the NEB took it over. Therefore, the management is there. What has been lacking has been the political will actually to continue with this very important, vital and, in employment terms, crucial experiment.
The enterprise, under Worcester Engineering, could go ahead with £4 million of public money. Yet we heard not one word about that from the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West, who has disappeared into the mist having made his little speech. Presumably, we shall hear nothing about it from the hon. Member for Rushcliffe, yet the Conservatives were prepared to put in £4·9 million and sell the co-operative to private enterprise in order to make it profitable rather than make it profitable as a cooperative at a cost of £2·9 million.
In all the discussions that I have had with KME and at the numerous meetings and deputations which Ministers and worker-directors have had over the last four or five years, the guiding principle has been very clear. It is certainly my guiding principle and it has been that of Jack Spriggs and Dick Jenkins. That is, that our major objective shall be to maximise the number of jobs that are preserved and maintained at the co-operative. This has been our view consistently since 1974 after the work-in. Indeed. given the employment problems of Kirkby, no other course of action would have been reasonable. It is my view that the number of jobs comes first rather than the concept of the co-operative. It is the view of Jack Spriggs and Dick Jenkins. It is the view clearly of the work force as a whole.
It does not matter all that much—this needs to be said—who actually owns the


company. That is what the work force says and what the worker-directors say. They have said it not only to me but to the Minister, as he will testify, on numerous occasions.
The most important need—it has to be the most important—is to maintain the maximum number of jobs. We would all prefer that those jobs were maintained under the auspices and within the context of a co-operative. That is highly desirable, something we all want and have always worked for. But jobs come first. It is not unnatural given the high unemployment levels of Kirkby and Merseyside.
We do not need to lose the 700 jobs provided at Kirkby. We certainly cannot afford to lose those jobs. We have a chance of saving them if the Government will reconsider their decision not to provide the £2·9 million that was asked for. They now have a chance to save those jobs by providing the £2·9 million and putting in PA Management Consultants. It would certainly cost far less than the cost to the Government and to the Exchequer of unemployment pay and social security benefit for the 700 and more who will not have any real prospect of finding a job tomorrow, next week, next month or next year. Hundreds of them will be condemned to being on the dole for long periods. If we have saved £10 million in the last four and a half years, we will save more than the £2·9 million for which we are asking in the next four years. That in itself makes good sense.
The Government got a very good bargain with KME in the past. They could get a very good bargain in the future. I therefore impress that point upon my right hon. Friend, the Minister. The price is cheap. It is a cheap price to pay to avoid the misery that would be inflicted on individuals if KME were to go down. It is a cheap price to pay to avoid a terrible knock for Merseyside's morale, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens will acknowledge, is already suffering through redundancies and closures. We have experienced them almost on a daily basis for the last five years and more, long before the lifetime of this Government.
People on Merseyside are extremely distressed and apprehensive. They constantly fear any industrial moves because all

industrial moves have been had industrial moves. There is little on the horizon that looks enterprising, popular or likely to bring jobs to the area.
We cannot afford the continuing sapping of confidence and morale which is occurring through redundancies and closures. We cannot afford the closure of the co-operative at KME. Certainly the price for the Government to keep this vital and imaginative experiment alive is cheap. It is cheap even to prevent the inflow of permanent imports to replace the lost production of the co-operative if it is allowed to fail.
My preferred option, apart from the proposal that I know the work force is submitting to the Minister tomorrow, is that the NEB should take over the Kirkby co-operative and that management should be provided from other sources. We accept the need for a strengthening of management and the need for a new management team. There are many problems which I have not mentioned but which are acknowledged. There are many faults. and failings. There have been many wrong decisions within the co-operative. That is accepted—it certainly cannot be denied—but it is important, having. accepted that, that we attempt to keep this vital experiment in being, not simply as, an experiment but because it is keeping in work 700 people who otherwise would not have work.

Mr. Spriggs: If a dog is given a bad name, it sticks. The Merseyside area has been given a bad name from a labour point of view with industrial disputes. Yet, compared to other parts of the country, Merseyside has nothing like the industrial problems that people would have the rest of the country believe. If a parliamentary deputation from both sides of the House were to visit industry in the area and see the quality of work turned out by men and women, I believe that Ministers would change their minds about the Kirkby co-operative.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: My hon. Friend is right about the image that Merseyside has and to say that the reality is nothing like the image. My hon. Friend may have read the articles that I wrote for the Liverpool Echo—;and, indeed, The Daily Telegraph, although I hope that he wilt not tell too many people about the latter.


Both showed clearly from the Government's own figures that Merseyside has a better record of industrial relations than most other comparable regions, such as the West Midlands, Scotland and Wales. We lose far fewer hours, fewer man days, in strikes than most other regions. At any time 98 per cent. of Merseyside is totally strike-free. Yet Merseyside has two of the most strike-prone industries anywhere located there—motor manufacture and the docks. No other area has the two together.
But that leads me from the point. One of the problems for me and my hon. Friends who have represented Merseyside constituencies in the past is how to explain to our constituents and Merseyside as a whole why the Government have been able to do nothing about redundancies a Plessey and the closure of Thorn or Courtaulds. We have had to raise our hands in despair and say that we do not have the powers to do anything about GEC-AEI, Lucas, Tate and Lyle, Albright and Wilson, or Pilkingtons in St. Helens. Every time, we have had to sympathise and say that the Government do not have any powers, there is nothing we can do and we live in a free society, in which people can buy and sell companies over the heads of their workers without informing them. They can close down a factory in Kirkby, Liverpool or Skelmersdale with little thought for those concerned or the area, and there is nothing that we can do about it.
But in this case we can do something about it. With the co-operative, the matter lies within the Government's hands directly and immediately. We cannot explain to our constituents why our Government refuse to act. We can do it, but they do not believe us, when we talk about Plessey or anywhere else. We cannot do it when talking about this cooperative. Here, the Government have a direct and immediate responsibility.
They should forget about IDAB and the permanent secretary to the Department of Industry and his accounting officer note. We must take account of our social responsibilities. We are not prepared to tolerate—nor can we, nor should we do so—the consigning of thousands of our constituents to the dole queues. In this case, we do not need to do it. The Government have the powers and the resources and they can make the decisions. On social grounds alone, I ask the Government now to decide in favour of Kirkby.
The men and women at that factory have demonstrated by their actions that they want a job. They have fought for their jobs. They fought for them by welding the gates together in the sit-in in 1974. They have fought continually since then for the right to work, and I appeal to my right hon. Friend the Minister to give my constituents in Kirkby no more than they ask—the right to work.

9.55 p.m.

Mr. Bob Cryer: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak briefly in the debate on KME, because it involves an important matter of principle. This is not just a question of one area and one constituency. The matter that divides the two sides of the House is one of ideology.
I find it distasteful that well-heeled Tories receiving public funds as MPs and drawing money from elsewhere—the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) is the spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain—should talk about putting people on the dole. I hope to see the day when Tory MPs talk about putting people on the dole but head the queue themselves. It would be more fitting if they were prepared to do that, instead of always telling other people to do so.
We on the Labour side would naturally have preferred KME and every other cooperative to start off on the best possible footing. Much has been made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Kilroy-Silk), who represents the Kirkby area, of the difficulties that KME faced. Of course, we would prefer not to have to support a co-operative which started off in crisis. However, we face an economy which is dominated by private enterprise capitalism, and in those circumstances private enterprise capitalists are not likely to give their profitable plums to workpeople who want to investigate the possibility of a co-operative endeavour. In those circumstances, we are dealing with the scraps, with the discarded marginal items of capitalism. That was the case with Kirkby. It was a scrap of capitalism that failed on at least four occasions on the same site. Its orginal aim was to bring work to an area of high unemployment.
There is in KME a determination to keep jobs. It is led by the former shop stewards and conveners Jack Spriggs and Dick Jenkins. Less than £5 million has been spent on this project, temporary employment subsidy apart. We know that when the grant was orginally made the accounting officer, the permanent secretary in the Department of Industry, under the Exchequer and Audit Departments Act of 1866, wrote a note expressing concern. I think that that, too, represented

an ideological attitude. We are talking about a Department that financed the development of Concorde, and I cannot accept that the expenditure of around £700 million, with aircraft costing £36 million each, was at no time the subject of some sort of scrutiny. I should be interested to know just how many statements the accounting officer has made under that Act about some of the lavish chunks of private enterprise expenditure that have taken place.
There are good signs about what KME has done. Paragraph 2.15 of the working party report said:
 Following the loss of over £1·0 million in 1975, Kirkby had reduced the loss in 1976 to same £400,000 on a turnover of £6·8 million.
So something of value was achieved. As my hon. Friend said, 750 jobs were preserved and the co-operative gained 10 per cent. of the radiator market. The workers had taken over a fairly complicated technological process. It is worth saying in response to my hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens (Mr. Spriggs) that it has not been the subject of industrial disputes and that the workers have been working in harmony.
We must point out that co-operatives are not simply some slightly different form of undertaking. They represent a qualitative difference in the organisation of the means of production. People are working together instead of against one another. That is something that the Opposition cannot or will not understand. That is another reason why they do not want co-operative endeavours to succeed. They want them to fail so that they can point to what they would claim as the vaunted success of private enterprise.
Losses were being made at KME, and consultants who were employed to report on the co-operative spent a good deal of time examining the position. They reported in March 1978 and suggested a number of improvements in conditions. For example, they suggested a reduction in the total of 744 employees to 639. The subsequent working party report said:
 On this basis PA predicted that KME would at least break even on its trading in 1978–79. Although this represented at best a very small return on its investment, it did represent a very significant turn-round compared with a loss of £1·24 million in the 10 months


to January 1978. KME accepted the conditions in the report and applied for f2·9 million of the grant aid.
That figure of £2·9 million represented the cost of closure, redundancy payments and dole for 740 or so employees for a year. The dole for a year is a likely condition for anybody who is declared redundant in Kirkby at present.
The PA Consultants' report was a massive and comprehensive document. The firm of PA Consultants, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk pointed out—I am sure that he read my article in Tribune—is not an obscure organisation. It was concurrently employed by the Department of Industry to carry out an other massive review of job opportunities and inducements on Merseyside. Therefore, that firm had the imprimatur of the Department of Industry. In other words, the Department of Industry did not hold that organisation in low regard, otherwise the Department could not have justified the expenditure on employing it in that area of activity. I know that the Civil Service checked every question and point raised by PA Consultants and assessed the application in a private committee and recommended to the Industrial Development Advisory Board that the application should be turned down.
I wish to point out that IDAB, which was chosen by the Labour Government, has seven captains of industry with 35 directorships spread among them, as opposed to three trade union representatives. If we are seeking to change society by virtue of our election manifesto, that surely represents an inexplicable choice by the Secretary of State.
We recognise that we must consult experts, but it is strange that IDAB should contain so many who represent private enterprise philosophy and attitudes. The Board is not subject to personal representation, or, indeed, to representation by Ministers. It is part of the pattern of influence of the Civil Service. I have no knowledge of this, but I imagine that the Civil Service would recommend appointments to the IDAB.
One of the difficulties which Labour Governments always face is that senior civil servants have clear views of their own about industrial policy. They believe in closing down all unprofitable factories

and in investing only where profits are high. They tend to ignore the impact on jobs or on Britain's economy. They tend to support strongly—and this is a general comment—the authority of accountants and managements against trade unions and shop stewards. They believe that it is mainly workers who are to blame for Britain's industrial failure. They hold these views because they are in day-to-day contact with the City and with top executives of British and foreign companies, to whom they look for support and an exchange of views, attitudes and ideas.
It is important that our Ministers in a Labour Government are prepared to make political decisions. These decisions are often difficult to make but they should be made because, whatever the views of civil servants, it is political decisions that are important and accountable to this House, no matter how tough they might be.
The working party suggested that further public funds could be provided subject to conditions. It said, in paragraph 4.17 of its report:
 Our view is therefore that two basic conditions would have to be met if KME were to be provided with further public money, while continuing as a co-operative. First, its management would have to be strengthened. Second, the body providing funds would have to agree a detailed plan for ending KME's losses within a short period.
Therefore, it did consider that the cooperative should continue provided that two basic conditions were fulfilled.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: A few moments ago the hon. Gentleman made a rather thinly veiled personal attack on senior civil servants, civil servants in his former Department and individual members of IDAB, and he began his speech by trying to make a personal attack upon my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) and myself. So far as I can see, the only thing that we have in common is that we all disagree with him. Is it his case, on getting down to it, that people holding these positions should abandon commercial criteria or profitability and markets when investing public money? Is he really saying that political and not commercial criteria should decide where taxpayers' money is invested?

Mr. Cryer: I shall come to that matter because I want to relate the position of KME to the public guidelines both for 1972 Industry Act assistance and the NEB guidelines, because it is important that these comments should be marshalled against our publicly expressed views.
I continue briefly with the points from the working party report. It said that there would have to be very close monitoring and
 No monitoring process of the type that we envisage could be used… We therefore take the view that KME should not receive further funds directly from the Department of Industry.
However, one of the factors of the report, which I think is a serious matter, is that it was indicated to the working party that the Secretary of State would not use his powers under section 3 of the Industry Act 1975 to give the NEB a direction to require it to become involved in KME. As has been pointed out, the question raised by the NEB of not having the day-to-day management expertise was not really a valid one. PA Consultants had offered—it does so as a matter of course—to provide the management expertise, to ensure that the conditions that were laid down were carried out and that its reputation—which was placed on the line by its public commitment to KME and its resolution that the position of KME could be reversed so that it could hold its own—should be safeguarded by some form of assistance in the day-to-day management.
I believe that that alternative should have been considered by the working party, and I am sorry that the Secretary of State was not prepared to use his powers —powers that were given to him by this House but which, unfortunately, have not been implemented.
When the working party reported, IDAB sweetly and swiftly agreed to provide £4·3 million to Worcester Engineering Limited. I know that there have been a number of strange stories in the Financial Times, a paper which seems to have many stories of an initimate nature, shall we say, from the Department of Industry, although it could be pure speculation on its part. It was suggested at one stage that Worcester Engineering would in fact offer two consultancies to the leaders of the co-operative.
I understand that my right hon. Friend the Minister has said that he was anxious only to provide some sort of cushion from the harsh realities of the dole queue for the two leaders concerned. I know that he would agree with me that the harsh reality of the dole queue would apply to Jack Spriggs and Dick Jenkins and all the other people at the co-operative who were faced with unemployment. The main solution is not to think in terms of dividing the leadership, say, from the work force, but to recognise that the main aim is to preserve the co-operative endeavour and the number of jobs as vigorously and as rigorously as the Government can.
Failure to support KME is not simply a question of a particular co-operative in a particular area; it represents an ideological victory for those civil servants who believe purely in the profit motive and who are giving that advice, which, unfortunately, is being accepted. It represents a majority of the private enterprise view on IDAB, and of course it represents a victory for the Opposition Members who have initiated this debate and mounted this attack on public expenditure.
I am extremely surprised at the Opposition's view. They are always prepared, on ideological grounds, to attack comparatively small amounts of public money being given to co-operatives such as KME and Meriden, but I never hear them protests about the £11 million or so a day that goes largely to private enterprise. In 1976–77, for example, we spent about £719 million on regional development aid alone, yet there has not been a peep out of the Tories about that sort of expenditure.

Mr. Budgen: The hon. Gentleman thinks that he smokes me out. I want to make it plain that whenever I have had the opportunity I have always made it clear that I am opposed to all forms of regional aid. I am opposed to the "stick" policy of regional aid, in the form of the necessity to get various forms of licence or permission from the State before one can develop in areas that were once prosperous, such as the West Midlands. I am also opposed to the various forms of grant that are made, which again distort the economy.

Mr. Cryer: I have not noticed the hon. Gentleman opposing the massive chunks of aid that the Government have given to the West Midlands area.

Mr. Budgen: I have.

Mr. Cryer: The West Midlands would have been allowed slowly to become an industrial desert had it not been for the present Government. Nearly £1 billion has gone into the West Midlands. If we had not rescued firms such as Chrysler UK and Leyland, for instance, about 10,000 small companies would also have gone under. Presumably, the hon. Member would object to that.

Mr. Budgen: I cannot remember every vote on Leyland that has taken place in this House. However, my recollection is that I and four of my colleagues voted against the first handout to British Leyland. As far as I can recollect, I have voted on every possible occasion against any form of handout. I see the Under-Secretary of State nodding. If I have missed any vote, it has been by mistake.

Mr. Cryer: I am grateful to the hon. Member for confirming my view of him and for confirming the view that he is prepared, callously and coldheartedly—

Mr. Budgen indicated dissent.

Mr. Cryer: Yes, indeed. The hon. Member is in a comfortable position. He is getting a livelihood as a lawyer and a livelihood as a Member of Parliament, yet he is quite callously prepared to put thousands and thousands of people on the dole for political, doctrinaire reasons. He cannot give me the name of one organisation of significance that could replace any of the jobs that he wants to throw out of the window in the West Midlands. I cannot think of a colder or more vicious attitude to the working class of Britain than the attitude that the hon. Member has displayed.
Also, when I am mentioning public expenditure and the Opposition raising the issue of the expenditure on KME of a comparatively small amount, perhaps I may ask where Opposition Members were last night—not 1,000 miles away and not in the past, in the dusty pages of Hansard, but last night. The House was debating regional expenditure—Northern Ireland expenditure—and the £55 million to be spent on the De Lorean

car. If Opposition Members are so concerned about public expenditure on industrial matters, where were they last night? Their Front Bench spokesman did not even mention the £55 million, the£26,000 per job or the risky nature of the venture.
Let me make it quite clear that welcome the number of jobs for West Belfast, but I am pointing out that the debate concerned a significant chunk of expenditure, about which hon. Members claim that they are concerned, and they were not even present. I am not having it both ways. What I am pointing out is that the De Lorean car venture represents massive support for a private enterprise venture. We shall see whether or not it succeeds. The reason why Opposition Members were not present was not that they are opposed to public expenditure but that they are opposed to public expenditure when it goes to a form of organisation that is different from the ones to which they are committed. When expenditure goes to private enterprise, they seem complacent and do not arrive in the Chamber. However, must say that the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. McNair-Wilson) attended the debate and said:
 If I add here that I am in no sense wishing to knock the project, I hope the Minister will recognise that I am trying in some small way to produce some of the scrutiny that I think should have been made available following a ministerial statement at the very beginning of this Parliament."— [Official Report, 11th December 1978; Vol. 960, c. 155.]
I wish that the Members here today would make the same kind of comment about KME. They could make reasonably constructive statements in the exercise of their jurisdiction as Members of Parliament. But, no. We have had one criticism from the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) of this matter. No doubt we shall have comments also from the hon. Member for Rushcliffe indicating his total opposition to this co-operative and the Meriden Co-operative, because both he and the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West raised that matter as well. They express their patriotism by wishing to see "Japan" writ large in every area of active endeavour. They are opposed to Meriden, which is the largest seller of 755 cc motor cycles in the United Kingdom. Indeed, it has had a 35 per cent.


increase in productivity. It is the largest seller, Japanese machines apart, after Harley-Davidson in the United States. Nevertheless, both hon. Gentlemen want to see another vestige of British manufacturing industry wiped out after yet a further failure of private enterprise.
I want to make one or two brief points about what the Secretary of State needs to do. First, I hope that he will consider sympathetically the KME application, which is due to be handed in in the near future. I hope that it will be especially linked with the Department of Industry through the English Estates Corporation, which is the advance factory side of the Department, purchasing part of this vast factory. Running throughout the whole of the reports that have been made is the indication that the overheads are too heavy, by virtue of the fact that this huge factory—the size of five football pitches —is not being fully utilised by any manner of means. If the application contains some form of leasing of parts of the factory to other users to provide more jobs, I hope that it will receive sympathetic consideration.
If there is any kind of impasse, I hope that it will be possible to reconvene the working party. I understand that Professor Hague, the chairman, informed the KME directors at a meeting on 5th November that he was unhappy about the way that things had gone and would welcome fresh terms of reference. I think that the Secretary of State should be prepared to issue a section 3 order under the Industry Act 1975 to the NEB—

The Minister of State, Department of Industry (Mr. Alan Williams): That is news to me and, I suspect, to my officials. I have no knowledge of any such statement on 5th November. On what is that based?

Mr. Cryer: It is based on information that I have received. I understand that statement was made to the directors of KME. Those were the general terms in which I was informed that statement was made. I know that my right hon. Friend wrote to the directors of KME saying that Professor Hague would not wish to follow the NEB direction. All I am pointing out is that there seem to be various views, depending on who is in whose company at which time. My view almost certainly

is that if the chairman, saw the opportunity of re-examining the position he would willingly take it up and have a fresh look at it.
I was making the point that the Secretary of State should be prepared to issue a section 3 order to the NEB and that PA Consultants could be asked to come in and exercise day-to-day management. I believe that that would be within the published guidelines.
The guidelines—" Criteria for Assistance to Industry "—under the Industry Act are governed by a number of published paragraphs, but there are two in particular that are worth quoting, because they apply very well in these circumstances. Paragraph 9 states that
 There are circumstances in which company profits and losses are not a wholly accurate measure of resource costs and benefits, because there are costs (e.g. pollution or congestion or unemployment) and benefits (e.g. getting a better-balanced regional distribution of industry and employment) which accrue to the community as a whole and not to the individual enterprise. In these situations there are grounds for setting out to redress the divergence between money costs and benefits and social costs and benefits, whether by taxation, planning controls or subsidies.
Paragraph 21 says that
 In considering an assessment of viability along with an assessment of the social costs and benefits involved, the Government have always been more prepared to give proposals for assistance the benefit of the doubt as to the prospects of viability where the social cost of withholding assistance would be particularly high "—
I do not suppose that anyone would argue that the social costs in an area of high unemployment when more people are put on the dole will be low—
 in particular in areas of persistent high unemployment where the creation of new employment is specially difficult.
Nobody would deny that Kirkby precisely fits that category. The paragraph continues:
 In doing so, particular attention should be given to the assessment of risks, and those uncertainties which are the most dominant.
Therefore, there is an argument that the case is within the guidelines.
What about the NEB? It is supposed to have a regional dimension. It was to be not a merchant bank chaired by an ex-merchant banker, using the criteria


that the ordinary commercial private enterprise merchant bank would use. According to our election manifesto, it was supposed to be a thrusting institution that would extend into the profit-making side of private industry.
Paragraph 24 of the NEB guidelines, published in 1977, says that
 The White Paper ' The Regeneration of British Industry stated that the NEB was to be an instrument through which the Government would operate directly to create employment in areas of high unemployment. The Industry Act 1975 reflects this by providing that one of the NEB's purposes is the provision, maintenance or safeguarding of productive employment in any part of the United Kingdom.
Nobody can deny that KME is productive employment. It has 10 per cent. of the radiator market. It has suffered recently because of the Ford strike, but it does a great deal of contract press work.
One of the ironies of the present situation is that hon. Members have talked about State support. If people go on the dole, State support does not stop. The Government have quite properly produced many job creation schemes. Therefore, even if KME were closed, the people who were put on the dole would almost certainly be put into Government training schemes and job creation schemes of one sort or another.
It is true that the cost would come under a different departmental Vote. People in the Department of Industry might well say "We have exercised our function in this way ", whereas people in the Department of Employment might take pride in the fact that in the first year they had got 300 people on to some sort of training course—all at public cost.
It makes total nonsense to close down a productive factory and put people on the dole and on to training courses at the public expense, particularly when there is a strong likelihood that if KME closes down the shortage of radiators will be so great that its 10 per cent. market share, or a large chunk of it, will be immediately taken up by imported radiators from Italy or elsewhere. I understand that large wholesalers have already been abroad looking for alternative sources of supply in case KME closes down.
Paragraph 25 of the NEB guidelines says that

 The NEB's main help to the areas of high unemployment will come as a result of their own initiatives. But the NEB will also discharge these responsibilities in pursuance of directions made by the Secretary of State to provide assistance from time to time to companies in financial or managerial difficulties.
Therefore, according to its guidelines, the NEB's argument about not having managerial expertise is not valid anyway. That is a function that it must fulfil.
The paragraph continues:
 The Government will provide incentives to development by the NEB and their companies in areas of high unemployment through the use of the existing powers of regional assistance under the Industry Act 1972 in accordance with the guidelines and criteria for this assistance and within the provision approved by Parliament ".
But the guidelines already provide for this situation, so that in terms both of the NEB guidelines and of the guidelines set out in the Industry Act 1972 assistance to KME would be perfectly justified. Of course, it would be an area of high unemployment, an area of social deprivation. That is what we are concerned with here. We are committed, whether in Kirkby or anywhere else, to getting people off the dole. That is one of our important commitments.
Conservatives who argue about closing down KME and putting people on the dole are the very people who ran a £500,000 campaign saying "Labour isn't working" with pictures of Saatchi  Saatchi employees standing outside a mythical dole office. Unemployment is a reality. We understand that unemployment is too high. This is one of the ways in which we can bring it down.
I was not prepared to justify or to defend the decision to hand over KME to private enterprise at a cost of £1½ million more than the sum for which the cooperative was asking. It is time Labour's policies were adopted with more pungency and vehemence by the Department of Industry. Ministers should cease yielding to siren voices which might be within their hearing from the Conservative Benches. I hope that they will not take any notice of IDAB or the Civil Service.
We now have a Property Development Agency. Unfortunately, it has no money. At least it could help fill the gap in management and expertise. It has no money because the Conservatives opposed such a move on an ideological basis.


They did not want this body to have any money, because it might then have been too effective. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk. I believe that this is a matter of important principle. My hon. Friend said that the Labour and trade union movement had not, perhaps, given Kirkby the priority that he felt it deserved. I remind him that an emergency motion was tabled at the annual conference of the Labour Party—a motion that was neatly sidestepped by the setting up of the working party. The emergency motion was withdrawn.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: Perhaps I should explain to my hon. Friend that I was not talking about the type of help, although we could do with more than we have been getting since September. I was talking about help going back to 1974 and the frequent representations that I, Ministers, and Jack Spriggs and Dick Jenkins made to individual trade union leaders, trade unions, co-operative movements, and so on, for help of all kinds, which was not forthcoming.

Mr. Cryer: At the Labour Party conference the emergency motion was withdrawn. It would have sailed through conference with a massive majority if it had been put.
Since my resignation from the Department of Industry I have received a stream of letters from individuals all over the country and from constituency parties. KME clearly represents an important symbol. This is working men and women doing something which previously has been the prerogative of the executive suite. That is the ideological difference between us. The Conservatives think that it is not the place of working men and women to usurp the executive suite. They think that working men and women should keep their place on the shop floor. KME represents a different form of organisation, a better form of organisation, because it is men and women working together to help one another. That is the sort of principle that I am prepared to stand by. I know that it is the sort of principle that the trade unions and the Labour movement are prepared to stand by, too.

10.29 p.m.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-

West (Mr. Budgen) on raising an important topic, although the interest that it arouses is strikingly different as between my hon. Friend and myself on the one hand and the hon. Members for Ormskirk (Mr. Kilroy-Silk) and Keighley (Mr. Cryer) on the other.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West began by speaking, as lie said, more in sorrow than in anger. He expressed fully his concern about the position of the 770 men facing unemployment at Kirkby. His opening provoked prolonged diatribes from the hon. Members for Ormskirk and Keighley, both of whom based their attack upon their apparent belief that all Conservatives are indifferent to unemployment and that Labour Members have a sole prerogative in terms of trying to provide jobs in areas such as Merseyside. I accept that they believe that, but I cannot understand why. Conservatives are very concerned about the position of more than 1 million people who are unemployed because of the Government's industrial policies.
We believe that providing employment for people means providing a climate in which a firm can be set up to manufacture competitively goods for which there is a market. It is essential that those goods should be marketed effectively to produce the necessary capital to pay the work force and generate further funds for investment to modernise the plant and keep the company abreast of its competition—real jobs in real firms surviving in the real world of the market place, which, as a trading country, we must face and accept.
The alternative that, in the name of full employment, the previous two speakers have put forward, is anarcho-syndicalist gobbledegook, which passes for industrial policy on the Left wing of the Labour Party, which has been very powerful and was powerful when the Kirkby cooperative was first backed. The arithmetic that they use to justify ever greater demands for more taxpayers' money for Kirkby could be used to justify keeping open every bankrupt venture throughout the country which is producing goods uncompetitively. It is impossible to pour millions into enterprises that have lost their markets or lost the place in the market that they could hold profitably, competitively or effectively.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West said, it is misleading for Labour Members to put forward these extraordinary propositions and persuade people to commit themselves to ventures that, as the hon. Member for Ormskirk seemed at one stage to concede, are doomed to failure.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: The hon. Gentleman is talking a load of nonsense. He says that we have persuaded the workers at KME to commit themselves to the work force. He has no notion of the industrial reality on Merseyside. Those people had no alternative. They did not commit themselves in the sense that the hon. Gentleman uses those words. They had no other option in employment terms.
The hon. Gentleman alleged that my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) and I claimed that Conservatives are opposed to the co-operative movement. The hon. Gentleman said that there was no evidence for that claim, but there is plenty of evidence. The hon. Gentleman is providing it now—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Kilroy-Silk) spoke for 50 minutes. He is not entitled to argue his case again in an intervention.

Mr. Clarke: If the hon. Member wants to make lengthy interventions every five minutes, he will prolong my speech to 50 minutes. I do not propose to give way every time that he seeks to intervene.
The hon. Gentleman attended some of our debates on worker co-operatives and he should know that many Conservative Members, including myself, are enthusiastic about the potential in developing those co-operatives and backed the Cooperative Development Agency, and so on.
The argument about Kirkby is not, in essence, anything to do with the issue of worker co-operatives. There is room for more anger than my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West put into his speech, because Kirkby is connected with an ideological battle over industrial policy which the Left wing of the Labour Party was winning a few years ago.
We shall not forget that KME is one of the survivors of the first two years of the

Government when the present Secretary of State for Energy was Secretary of State for Industry. It is part of the disgraceful trio—Kirkby, Scottish Daily News and Meriden—which were so-called workers' co-operatives set up after sit-ins supported by the Labour movement and granted taxpayers' money on terms that were deliberately more favourable than would have been made available to their private enterprise alternatives.
The Scottish Daily News has gone bust and about £2 million of taxpayers' money will not be recovered, Meriden is due to come back again next year, we hear, for another £1 million to keep it going for another year, if the Government can be bullied into allowing that, and Kirkby has reached its present crisis.
A total of £5 million of taxpayers' money has gone down the drain in a little over four years. That sum cannot be dismissed lightly. When I was dealing with social security policy I came across many worthwhile projects that could have been financed with £5 million of taxpayers' money. That £5 million has been paid to the Government by people who work in profitable enterprises and pay their proper tax. It is disgraceful that the money has been spent for the ideological reasons described so cogently by the hon. Member for Keighley.
We do not know exactly how much public money has been lost on this project. I am not talking of the company's trading losses. It seems to have traded at a loss of about £3 million. I am talking about the taxpayers' money which has been invested in that enterprise by the Government.
Only yesterday, at a meeting addressed by the Minister of State, was the full extent of Government aid to the firm in the last five years revealed. We knew of the repeated applications under section 7 of the Industry Act. In November 1974 £3·9 million was involved on a once-for all basis. In April 1977 the sum was £860,000. In November this year the sum was said to be £150,000 to cover continuing losses whilst the working party made its report.
Those are the figures that have been given to the House, but according to newspaper reports yesterday the Minister of State revealed a little more. He said that in the 10 weeks since the working party


was set up £200,000 had been spent to cover the financial obligations of the enterprise. The Minister also gave a figure for temporary employment subsidy paid out in 1976. This totalled £680,000.

Mr. Alan Williams: Those figures have been given before.

Mr. Clarke: Perhaps the Minister of State can say when they were given. In Hansard on 13th November a reply was given—ironically by the hon. Member for Keighley, who was then a Minister—to my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley). My hon. Friend asked what was now the total amount of public money lent, promised or given to the Kirkby co-operative. I shall not read out the answer, but it sets out the £3,900,000, the £860,000 and the temporary assistance of £150,000. It does not mention other public funds. It is a less than adequate answer to the Question.

Mr. Williams: My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) did not mislead the House. He was answerable only for the actions of his own Department. He begins his answer with the words "My Department ", and he emphasises the assistance given by the Department for which he was then Under-Secretary of State. He was not answerable for payments made by the Department of Employment. There was no attempt by him to mislead.

Mr. Clarke: I am grateful to the Minister for explaining how his hon. Friend was able to get away with that answer. I accept that it is the truth, in that it reads "My Department has made ". However, it is not the whole truth. It is not a complete answer to the total amount of public money lent, promised or given. I cannot believe that it is an accident that the answer contained no hint of or clue to the complete answer.

Mr. Williams: May I reassure the hon. Gentleman?

Mr. Clarke: In a moment. I ask the Minister to consider the terms of my hon. Friend's Question. It reads:
 what is now the total amount of public money lent, promised or given to the Kirkby co-operative."—[Official Report, 13th November 1978; Vol. 958, c. 47.]

The use of the words "My Department" in the first sentence enables the answer to be accurate to itself. However, it is not a full answer to the Question. The answer that one receives depends much on the Minister who responds. The work force at Kirkby was told the full figure, including the £680,000 of TES, but the House was given a smaller figure. Some hon. Members have misused the TES figure when talking about the extent to which the profitability of the company was improving in recent years. The apparent profitability of the company was improving only because it was not revealed how much was going into the company by way of TES to improve the books.

Mr. Williams: I do not intend to be patronising, but the hon. Gentleman has never had the experience of government. If Ministers of any party refused to answer every sloppily worded Question that was submitted, Hansard would be a much thinner document. Instead of facing the allegation from hon. Members that we are refusing to answer Questions, we give as much information as we can within our competence within our own Department.

Mr. Clarke: The Minister did not confine himself to answering for his own Department at Kirkby yesterday ; he gave the full figures. I do not believe that the Question of my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury was sloppy. It was precise and terse. It received a less than full reply. We talk about £5 million having been lost but it is difficult to discover the full extent of the loss. We have only recently discovered the full extent of the loss.
Were the losses unexpected? The Government did not lack for advice, and sound advice, about the difficulties that were being faced. From the word "go", everybody but the hon. Member for Ormskirk who inspected the firm recognised that it faced considerable difficulties. The hon. Member for Keighley suggests that the hostility to the co-operative is based on ideological bias on the part of the Opposition. There is the belief that because rich bankers and lawyers were not involved we objected to workers entering the executive suite. If the hon. Gentleman believes that, he will believe anything.
The criticism of the Kirkby operation from the beginning was that it had repeatedly found itself in financial difficulties over some years. It was occupying premises that were too large and consequently was carrying out-of-proportion overheads. Its capital base was extremely insecure, even given the amount of money that it was proposed to make available. It was in a competitive market with its radiator products. It was in a crowded and difficult market. The firm was continuing to make a bizarre range of products ranging from orange juice to radiators, and the co-operative's managers would not revise its operations.
Those are not my opinions ; I have summarised the advice that the Government received and overruled. The Industrial Development Advisory Board is an independent advisory body designed to give the Government advice on the application of the Industry Act criteria to proposed grants. It is the Industry Act criteria that the IDAB applies. IDAB has always advised against the grants that have been made under the Act to the co-operative, for sound commercial reasons, but for political reasons that advice has been rejected.
A Committee of the House turned its attention to the three co-operatives—the Benn co-operatives—and produced a report. That was the report of the Committee of Public Accounts, probably the most prestigious Select Committee of the House. I refer to the sixth report, for the Session 1975–76. It contains a good analysis of the problems that were faced by the workers' co-operatives, and in paragraph 24 states that
Your Committee recognise the aspirations and efforts of the workers engaged in these cooperatives. Nevertheless, we are seriously concerned that £10 million was committed in support of projects on which there were such serious reservations on viabiilty and thus on their ultimate employment potential.
I shall not quote any further examples, as I do not want to be too long. The Committee was reassured in the end, after it had made severe criticisms, that the Department intended to apply its revised criteria for assistance to industry strictly to these applications as to others. That assurance, given to the Select Committee, was not followed by the Government.

Every time the Government got into a political storm they carried on giving money to Kirkby for ideological reasons rather than sensible or commercial ones.
The prospects for the company were never any good. It would always need constant injections of public money, and in those circumstances there must come a stage when that public money is too expensive and has to stop.
I shall deal with the general issues in case what I say is taken as a general attack on workers in management or on worker co-operatives. Many Conservative colleagues are keen supporters of the idea of workers' co-operatives. Among the keenest are my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) and my hon. Friend the Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen), who has just rejoined the Shadow Cabinet. Perhaps we could have an ideological debate with the hon. Member for Keighley, because we see workers' co-operatives as a valuable form of private enterprise. We see no reason why a body of people who wish to do so should not put their capital into a worker-owned enterprise, and we hope to see many of them thrive.
We object to particular workers' cooperatives being regarded as the favourite sons of the trade union and Labour movement and getting their money on favourable terms that would not be available to small private enterprise competitors.
It is only the hon. Member for Keighley and the hon. Member for Ormskirk who regard Kirkby as a workers' co-operative. Many in the co-operative movement, including many of those working in the Co-operative Development Agency, would not recognise in Kirkby a particularly striking example of a workers' co-operative. It is not worker-owned. There is an extremely small commitment of worker capital. What pleases the hon. Members about Kirkby is that two of the local union leaders are the managers. It is a union-run workers' group, which has local influential people in the AUEW and TGWU backing it. That is the attractive ideological aspect.
Many people in the traditional Cooperative movement refuse to recognise Kirkby. Certainly many people in the co-operative movement would agree with our position that constant harping on


the need to support such co-operatives gives all co-operatives a bad name.

Mr. Stanley Newens: It is true that the Kirkby co-operative does not conform with some of the objectives laid down by the original co-operative movement, but is the hon. Member aware that he is distorting the facts when he says that people who are associated with the official co-operative movement do not believe that this sort of enterprise should be given full Government support? I speak as a member of the cooperative group in the House and I am associated with the London Co-operative Society. Many sections of the movement are very anxious that this experiment should be given full Government support to enable it to go ahead.

Mr. Clarke: I did not say that there were not some sections of the co-operative movement that agree with the hon. Gentleman. I said that many sections did not. They do not feel that Kirkby is a good example of a worker co-operative. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Newens), with his authority and knowledge of the co-operative movement, for his initial confirmation that in many ways Kirkby does not comply with the accepted definition of a workers' co-operative.
On the issue of unemployment on Merseyside, there have been attempts at various times to interpret our criticisms as some sort of attack on the employment prospects on Merseyside. Again, I shall not labour a point that I made earlier. The future of Merseyside, as with every other depressed area—and in the present appalling climate, depression is spreading into the West Midlands and parts of London, where it was not present before —lies in getting real jobs in real industries making products for which there is a market in a competitive way.
When people talk about Merseyside getting a bad name—as I think that the hon. Member for St. Helens (Mr. Spriggs) did when the matter was raised earlier—I have the feeling that one or two of the Merseyside Members in this House, by their particular political views and their pronouncements on industrial policy, help to worsen the bad name of Merseyside by alarming prospective employers as to the kind of political nonsense that they

might find to be influential in that area if they were to move into it I do not say that these Members do it deliberately, but there are Merseyside Members who are positively counter-productive in the good that they do for their constituents.

Mr. Robert Parry: Will the hon. Gentleman give the names of those lion Members to whom he refers?

Mr. Clarke: I would hate to have another one on his feet, so I will not. I made the general point about the position on Merseyside and its future, as we see it, in creating a climate there where we can get some real jobs in really competitive industries.

Mr. Spriggs rose—

Mr. Clarke: I shall not give way. I shall close with a final illustration of the falseness of the proposition that this kind of approach, the Kirkby approach, is somehow saving jobs. What hon. Members often overlook when urging unlimited subsidy to a firm of this kind is the effect on jobs elsewhere in other companies which cannot obtain the same level of subsidy.
The Minister may laugh, but the answer is in his own Department. He should look at the Welsh Office, which was for a considerable time trying to subsidise Penrad, making radiators in Cardiff and competing with Kirkby. Penrad was subsidised by the Secretary of State for Wales and Kirkby was subsidised by the Secretary of State for Industry at one and the same time, in a declining market. Penrad had the best part of £1 million through the Welsh Office, but there was not any real muscle behind it. It did not have the hon. Member for Ormskirk and the Left wing of the Labour Party insisting on unlimited amounts of subsidy, and so Kirkby received more. It was largely as a result of the subsidised competition from Kirkby, and partly as a result of the preferential purchasing policy, with Labour-controlled local authorities buying Kirkby products, that Penrad went into liquidation in May 1977 and the jobs in Cardiff were lost.
In January 1978 the Welsh Development Agency invested another £600,000 in the same factory in Cardiff for a group


known as the Myson Group Limited, also making heating, ventilating and air conditioning equipment. If the Government carry on pouring money into Kirkby to maintain its subsidised part of the radiator business, they will be in part giving Kirkby a preferential subsidy compared with another struggling private enterprise firm in another part of the market.

Mr. Spriggs rose—

Mr. Clarke: In giving way, I say that I wish Labour Members would not be so obsessed in their belief that they have a monopoly of interest in worker co-operatives and in unemployment. They speak interminably themselves and then constantly seek to intervene when they are challenged.

Mr. Spriggs: I want only to raise some very relevant matters. First, has the hon. Gentleman assessed what it would have cost, had he had the authority to say "No" four years ago, to maintain 750 men and women on social security?

Mr. Clarke: I thought that I had dealt with that already. It is nonsensical arithmetic to bandy about this figure of £9 million, as hon. Members have done. That is based on the plainly absurd proposition that all these 775 men would have been out of work throughout the five years. I know that the hon. Member for Ormskirk tried to put a gloss on it, because when he saw me trying to intervene at one stage he anticipated that I would make this point to him. Of course he knows that 775 people would not have been out of work for five years. If we made that assumption about every proposed factory closure, we could make a case against ever closing a factory anywhere, regardless of what it was doing. The hon. Member tried to make the case that somehow there were lost job opportunities. I have answered that in part by referring to the job opportunities lost in Cardiff by keeping a subsidised competitor in being.
I want now to deal with the serious business, which I do not regard as answering the kind of nonsense which we have heard so often over the years from the hon. Member for Keighley and the hon. Member for Ormskirk. What have the

Government to do to get out of their present embarrassment? First, we were alarmed to see that at one stage the Government seemed prepared to go to very great lengths to get rid of the embarrassment, which might have involved some rather reckless use of public money. Admittedly, among the lengths to which they were prepared to go was apparently an attempt to get out of their present positions the two worker-directors, Mr. Jack Spriggs and Mr. Dick Jenkins. I am sure that the truth of all this is a matter that concerns the hon. Members for Ormskirk and Keighley as well as myself.
I rely on an article in The Sunday Times of 19th November 1978 by a Mr. Rob Rohrer headed
 Ministers in secret deal to sack leaders of workers co-operative".
This was an attempt to achieve the Stelrad takeover, which we certainly know Ministers were anxious to try to facilitate. The article, which I have no reason to doubt is based on a sight of the document referred to, says—

Mr. Alan Williams: Is the hon. Gentleman actually accusing me of being involved?

Mr. Clarke: Well, the article says:
 A minute sent to two other Government departments—Energy and Employment—also discussed at ministerial level the possibility of finding other jobs for the two KME leaders, Jack Spriggs and Dick Jenkins, possibly public sector 'Quango ' appointments, after they were sacked.
It goes on to describe how the Stelrad takeover plan, on which the Government were quite keen, foundered because of opposition from within KME itself.
I now move on to the Worcester Engineering deal, which was based on the working party's advice. I do not want to challenge that advice, because we all hoped that the working party would come up with a sensible compromise which would enable the enterprise to continue and some employment to be maintained.
So far as one can gather, the Government were certainly prepared to offer over £4 million—£4·3 million was being envisaged—to facilitate the takeover by Worcester Engineering and to follow the recommendations of the working party. That would have involved only 260 jobs


being lost and, inevitably, some rationalisation of the company with some employment being maintained.
Worcester Engineering has now retired from the arena and the negotiations have broken down. It is important to have some indication why they have broken down. Mr. Cecil Duckworth, Worcester's managing director, appears to be in no doubt why they have broken down. In his statement to the Financial Times on Friday, 8th December, he said:
I don't believe that KME is a willing seller and I don't believe we can overcome the sort of resistance we have been facing.
I do not know whether he wanted the workers to abandon their 35-hour week, to argue over redundancy levels, and so so on. I can only imagine the reaction that he got when I listen to the hon. Member for Ormskirk say "Of course, when we are offered more money and a takeover, it is not for the workers to lie on their backs and kick their feet in the air. We want to have a clear view precisely as to how the co-operative will continue ", because what they have done is to drive away Worcester Engineering and the offer of £4·3 million worth of public money—no doubt encouraged by the ideological nonsense that we have heard from hon. Members who supposedly represent the workers.
We also now find that the £200,000, which the Government were putting forward in order to continue paying the bills while the working party report was considered, has gone. What is the position now? As I understand it, yesterday at Kirkby, as today in the House, the Minister is facing straightforward demands for more taxpayers' money to keep the enterprise going for yet another indefinite period.
The National Enterprise Board has been mentioned. Apparently it is being argued by some that the NEB should be obliged to take over an enterprise that the Board itself plainly regards as not viable and not one that it could bring round and revive. One thing on which I think the Minister and we are agreed is that it is not the proper role of the NEB to be a kind of receptacle for this kind of company. The NEB must be allowed to make decisions about the commercial viability of the firms into which it puts its money. We Conservatives congratulate the NEB on its firmness on this matter,

and on the way in which it has stalwartly resisted political pressures to make it follow the role that the Government adopted five years ago and take on a non-viable enterprise.
Having congratulated the NEB, I make the same constructive and realistic suggestion—the only possible one—that I made yesterday. I do not know whether the Government are still paying out emergency funds to meet the bills, but the time has come for the receiver to be placed in charge of the assets of this company. That will not necessarily mean the loss of 775 jobs. The receiver's first action will be to study the viability of the company. No doubt he will eventually dispose of its assets to a willing purchaser on suitable terms. They could be acquired by an enterprise which will provide alternative employment in Kirkby. That is the only realistic way to rescue something from the shambles.

Mr. Parry: Who are the alleged Left-wing Labour Members for Merseyside to whom the hon. Gentleman has referred? Do the Right-wing Tory Members for Merseyside support his attitude in respect of assistance to firms on Merseyside, with the area's high unemployment?

Mr. Clarke: The hon. Gentleman does not know my attitude towards assistance to firms on Merseyside. I have not mentioned it tonight, although I have set it out in appropriate debates on many occasions. There is no question of anyone on the Opposition Benches wanting to cut off all aid for jobs on Merseyside. It is a parody of our position to claim that.
The Kirkby co-operative has reached the end of the road. It is one of the worst examples of the kind of Bennite nonsense that we had five years ago, which, if the national executive committee of the Labour Party had its way, would be the case again if a Labour Government had a majority in the House. I hope that the Minister will accept that in the present political circumstances, before the Government have a majority that would allow them to return to Left-wing follies, the time has come to save the taxpayers' money and call in the receiver.

11.2 p.m.

The Minister of State, Department of Industry (Mr. Alan Williams): First, I thank the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen)—whatever


his motives in asking for this debate—for providing the opportunity for the record to be put straight. There has been considerable misleading speculation in articles and comments in the media. The hon. Member talked of what he saw as the failure of the Kirkby co-operative. My hon. Friends drew the inference from that that he is therefore opposed to the principle of co-operation and feels that it could never succeed.
I trust that that is not the hon. Member's position, because my Department has a regular queue of private firms outside our door.

Mr. Budgen: Perhaps the Minister did not hear the passage in which I made it plain that the fact that it was a co-operative was neither here nor there. If people like to form themselves into co-operatives and succeed, it is a matter of great delight to me.

Mr. Williams: I am glad of that clarification.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Kilroy-Silk) and I have been involved in the difficulties of this cooperative for a long time. I pay tribute to the way in which he has represented his constituents and fought always for their interests and their jobs. He has drawn the same conclusions as I drew when I came to this Department fresh from the Department of Prices and Consumer Protection. I was immediately confronted by the difficulties of another cooperative, followed by the difficulties in which we have both been so involved.
That is why I ensured that the Cooperative Development Agency was set up. I felt that it would have been advantageous if such facilities had been available when the co-operatives were established. Perhaps many of the problems could then have been anticipated and avoided.
In order that the hon. Gentleman, in asking the Government to put in a receiver, should not be under any illusion, let me say that it is not a situation that we have contemplated or that is open to us even if we wished to do so. A receiver can be appointed only by a secured creditor, and in this case the only secured creditor is the bank. I hope that that will head off any further

requests for such action on the part of the Government.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: Are the Government giving any guarantees to Barclays that are causing it to withhold putting in a receiver?

Mr. Williams: We are not giving guarantees to the bank, and at this moment no Government financial assistance is being paid to the co-operative. Under section 7 we do not have powers, in the absence of any proposal from the co-operative.
Yesterday, I visited the co-operative. I do not think that many Ministers have visited it since it was established. We had a frank, robust and valuable meeting, in which I was left in no doubt about the fears and worries of the workers. Having encountered similar situations in my own area I fully understand the genuineness and depth of those feelings.
I take this opportunity to deal with various misconceptions about the situation that has developed throughout the life of the co-operative. We are living in a world of allegations of plots, threats and conspiracies—but plots threats and conspiracies that I do not think existed. There may have been miscalculations. Matters may not always have been handled in the most appropriate way by various people, but I do not think that there has been a wilful attempt on anyone's part to create difficulties for the co-operative.
For example, when the co-operative was set up with the £3·9 million by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State State for Energy, it was set up, as was indicated by one of the civil servants in his evidence to the Public Accounts Committee, with what was thought to be the appropriate sum. I am sure that all my hon. Friends will accept that neither my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, nor his then Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer), would deliberately have allowed the co-operative to have been set up under-funded. I hope that my hon. Friends will accept that there was no malevolent attempt to start it off underfunded, and I defend my right hon. and hon. Friends against any such suggestion.
It has also been alleged, perhaps in the article to which my hon. Friend the


Member for Ormskirk referred, or perhaps in an earlier article, that at the time when the co-operative was established the two directors were forced by the Department personally to undertake the responsibility for the rental and for the lease. That is absolutely without foundation. It was not until three months after the establishment of the co-operative that the Department discovered that such undertakings had been entered into.
One of the officials referred to by my hon. Friend wrote to Jack Spriggs saying that the Department had just heard that on the advice of the co-operative's legal advisers he had entered into this undertaking. We urged him to investigate whether he could extricate himself from it. That was the first occasion on which we were aware of it. It was not done on the advice of the Government ; it was done out of the best of motives by Jack Spriggs and Dick Jenkins, because they wanted to remove what they saw as the final obstacle to getting support for the co-operative. It would be a malicious misinterpretation to suggest that the Department had put them in that position.
My hon. Friends who know the Secretary of State for Energy—the then Secretary of State for Industry—will know very well that had any official endeavoured to impose so unreasonable a condition upon the two directors they would only have had to talk to my right hon. Friend and he would have ensured that such action was not pursued. I hope that that answers the nonsense argument that we have seen in certain newspapers.
As the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West said, and as has been repeated from various sources, the financial assistance was given on a once-for-all basis. In 1976, the Department of Employment—as it did for so many companies, mainly private, and throughout the private sector—gave financial support under the temporary employment subsidy. That was the £680,000 to which the hon. Gentleman referred. To be honest, I cannot remember when the matter was first raised. The hon. Gentleman asked when it was first mentioned. I can remember its being discussed—I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk will confirm this—quite freely on the day of the publication of the working party report. I have a suspicion that it

had been referred to even earlier than that in the press. I cannot swear to it without having a chance to check back on the files.
Then, in April 1977, we broke with the once-for-all principle. I accept that. We gave KME a further £860,000. Again perhaps I may tell those who have suggested that my right hon. Friend the current Secretary of State for Industry and myself are in any way ill disposed towards the co-operative that we gave that knowing that we would lay ourselves open to this sort of criticism from hon. Members, we did it willing to accept the consequences, and we did it, we think, for reasons that are defensible. Hon. Members may not approve of them, but we felt that they were defensible.
We were conscious of the evidence that had been given to the Public Accounts Committee, which suggested that the initial once-for-all assistance had not been properly assessed at the outset, and we were willing to recognise that the Department had, perhaps, been faulty in its calculation, as was suggested by one of the officials. We also accepted that there had been an unduly sustained and deep recession in the central heating sector of industry.

Mr. Budgen: Does the Minister agree that if at some stage his Department says "This is a once-and-for-all grant ", and then for some very special reason makes a supplementary grant, if it goes on making grant after grant after grant—after all, even after this supplementary grant a third grant has now been made—no one will ever believe that any grant can ever be described as once and for all? It will be thought that the money bags are always open.

Mr. Williams: I tried to explain that there were special circumstances, with official evidence to the PAC suggesting that there had been possible under-funding at the outset, and we felt that this was an exceptional situation. We also had to take into account the grave social situation in Kirkby—but, in fairness, that was taken into account the first time and when TES was given.
When that financial support was given by my right hon. Friend and myself, we had an assurance from the directors of the co-operative—it was volunteered, not


sought—that they would never again ask the Government for further financial support. I am not sure whether my hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk was present at that meeting. I see that he is confirming that situation. We gave this third tranche of Governmen money, taking it up to virtually £5½ million, and the directors gave us a catgoric assurance at that date—April 1977—that they would not again come back for money. Yet the fact is that in the September-October period they were asking for further finance. Between then and now, they have come back, I think, on six or seven occasions asking for further financial support.
In between times, we had also negotiated—I do not believe that this was at KME's request—that KME should become accepted tenderers for defence contracts, so in May of this year that option was also opened up for the co-operative as further evidence of our wish to give it the opportunity to survive.
Throughout the various occasions on which the directors said that they would not come back again, I must be fair to them and in part to my right hon. Friends in Government in emphasising one point. My hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk has on several occasions heard it said by the directors that, while they would prefer the company to remain a co-operative, that was not more important to them than saving jobs. Time and again, to their credit, they said that the important priority was to save jobs. Equally, they said—again to their credit —that if anyone felt that in the course of trying to save jobs their being there represented any obstacle to the jobs being secured, they would gladly stand aside. They have said that to my hon. Friend, and it is to their credit that they have said it. Hon. Members must bear in mind that what has been said to the Government on many occasions has been that the form of the co-operative was desirable but not imperative.
Other than the various attempts to interest the National Enterprise Board—and the NEB on every occasion has said that it did not want to get involved in the co-operative—the most notable attempt to put forward a proposition—this is the basis on which a whole series of propositions have been mounted dur-

ing the last six months or so—was the PA Management Consultants' report.
That report wanted £2·9 million from the Government, but it was turned down by the Industrial Development Advisory Board on what I think were valid grounds. First, even if it succeeded on the £2·9 million, it would make only a minute surplus, if any surplus at all. It would need only a slight loss of performance in the market or in production for the surplus to disappear. That slight surplus depended on more optimistic assessments of the development of a national market for radiators than we were able to find confirmed anywhere else. It also depended on a highly optimistic assumption of the co-operative's share of that expanded market. Of course, the Department knew what investment programmes other companies were bringing forward and what competition would be presented during the next 12 months.

Mr. Cryer: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Williams: When I have completed this point, I shall gladly give way to my hon. Friend. Even if the co-operative made that surplus—I put this question straight to PA Management Consultants and was given a blunt answer—it was such that PA Management Consultants would not recommend it to a private client. It admitted that even if that surplus were earned it would not be adequate to provide for future capital equipment and product development.

Mr. Cryer: Does my right hon. Friend accept that PA Management Consultants specifically said that it was prepared to put its reputation—which is considerable, as he will agree, because the firm was employed by the Department of Industry—on the line with its report and declaration that KME could be made free of public funds?

Mr. Williams: Yes. As my hon. Friend knows, many people are willing to stake their reputations on Government money. I should have been more impressed if the firm had told me that it was able to find some financial support to back its confidence. It is interesting that the PA Management Consultants' representative on the working party did not select its project.
On Thursday 7th September the two directors came to see me at short notice. We met in the middle of a Thursday afternoon. Timing is important, because it explains certain other matters which have given rise to ill feeling. They said that they had to be able to tell their bank at a meeting on the following Monday what their financial situation was likely to be. They had no firm project to put before the Government at that time. There we were in the middle of a Thursday afternoon—

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: Morning.

Mr. Williams: My hon. Friend says that it was in the morning. I accept that correction. It could have been in the morning. But it was very late in the week, and they wanted a decision by the following Monday.
Only then did I draw to their attention an option that had been put to the Department some time ago and that we had never pursued with the co-operative—an option that a private company had put to us. We had heard that it was possibly interested in obtaining extra capacity, and we approached it about possible support for the Kirkby operation. It was in no way interested in it as a going concern, and would take it only out of a receivership situation and only if, as is normal in such a situation, it could put in its own directors. A third condition, which we have honoured right up to this moment, and which I shall continue to honour, was that we never publicly name the company concerned.
I put that option to Jack Spriggs and Dick Jenkins, not as a happy solution but in the context of having one and a half working days left to try to devise a financial solution. I pointed out that the company had said that if it accepted the proposition 250 to 300 jobs would be saved, whereas my reading—and I think everyone's reading—of what we were being told on that day was that unless something came up at very short notice the whole co-operative could collapse. Only when faced with that as a possible final position did we even float the suggestion of a receivership. It certainly was not a preferred solution in the Department's view.
Towards the end of the meeting Jack Spriggs told me—I paraphrase, but I am

pretty certain that this is virtually correct —" That is an offer that no responsible trade union leader could refuse." That was not because he wanted it but because he, like us, thought that the only other option was the possible loss of every job. He was concerned at that stage to save the 250–300 jobs rather than lose the whole 700. No one was doing anything dishonourable. I accept criticism if what I did was wrong.
I contacted my right hon. Friend, my fellow Minister of State in my own Department, and other ministerial colleagues. I did not spell out the circumstances, because they were still confidential, and we were not at a stage where the matter would be going to Ministers. I did not ask them to create jobs; I asked whether there were suitable vacancies that they might wish to draw to the attention of the two directors, in the event of either of them becoming available.
Hon. Members may think that that was wrong, but that is very different from a newspaper report that suggests that the Government conspired to dismiss the directors. We were faced with an ultimatum from that company that there was no way in which it would take on the directors. Far from seeking to see them unemployed, we tried to establish whether their abilities—Conservative Members may differ from Labour Members on an assessment of their abilities—could be used.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: I am grateful to the Minister for being so frank with the House. I accept that what he did was done for the best and most honourable of motives. But does not he accept, upon reflection, that circulating other Ministers and looking for suitable appointments for two worker-directors about to be made redundant is not a proper way of making appointments to any quango? I do not want to use that as an emotional word, but I assume that he is confirming that he was looking for a political appointment to an extra-governmental body that would have helped deal with the problem of those two worker-directors. Does not that confirm all the things that are wrong with the quango situation, and the kind of temptations that Ministers fall into?

Mr. Williams: I wish the hon. Gentleman would not indulge in this sort of


thing, which is all too common in a KME context. Everyone is trying to build up a scandal about the most obvious of situations. The hon. Gentleman has never been in Government. I do not say that disparagingly. I hope that some time in the long-distant future he may have such an experience, even if it must be in another country.
The fact is that lists of names are created. Opposition Members write in and ask us to consider people for public appointments. Members of Parliament write in. Names are circulated throughout Whitehall. That does not mean that they are accepted or that people are appointed. All that happens is that the attention of Ministers is drawn to the availability of certain people with relevant experience. No one says that such people have to be appointed. That is why I emphasised the words "suitable experience." I did not ask for such people to be found appointments merely for the sake of who they were. No Minister would appoint them on that basis, and they would have been insulted by such a suggestion. I hope that that disposes of the idea of a deep-laid plot.
On the Friday morning Jack Spriggs telephoned the Department and said that he had had time to think the matter over on the train. He had discussed it with Dick Jenkins, and they felt that they could not go any further unless they knew the name of the firm. I asked the firm whether we could reveal its name. The firm said "No "—it had to insist on confidentiality. It said that it did not want to get into a negotiating position, because it felt that negotiations should be with the receiver.
I went back to the firm later and said that if the negotiating point troubled it I would be willing to chair a meeting, because what the co-operative directors wanted was information. That was understandable, because they were considering a big step. I said that I was willing to ensure that the meeting was kept on an information exchange basis. Again, for reasons perfectly credible to the company, it said that it had to insist that its name should not be revealed and that there should be no meeting. I did try to bring the two sides together, to sit between them and enable them to talk over the implications of the project.

Within a short time KME suggested that there should be a working party. It is absolutely essential that it is clearly understood that the working party was never a Government suggestion. We did not ask for it. It was asked for by the co-operative, in particular by Jack Spriggs. My hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk will confirm this. He expressed some surprise that I was willing to contemplate it. I agreed to the suggestion. There were several options available at the time, some of them not very well formed. At that stage Worcester was not on the scene. It emerged during the working party process. Because the alternatives were so ill-formed and because it was difficult to find jobs for 700 people in Kirkby, I agreed to a full-time working party which could spend several weeks analysing the projects, interviewing those putting them forward, and making recommendations.
The terms of reference were agreed with the working party. It was agreed that one member would be nominated by each side. The firm nominated a representative of PA Management Consultants, and I nominated one of my officials. There was to be an impartial chairman. On the Sunday morning I phoned Jack Spriggs and told him that we had come up with the name of Professor Hague. I told him that I did not want an answer from him then but that I wanted him to have time to consult whoever he wanted to see whether Professor Hague was acceptable. He phoned me later in the day to say that he had had consultations and had been assured that Professor Hague was a fair-minded and objective man. He was willing for him to be chairman.
The working party was the idea of the co-operative. Its membership was jointly agreed, and we both selected the chairman. We both agreed to abide by its decision. The firm wanted the working party and was willing for it to go beyond the co-operative context in its terms of reference. It agreed to abide by its decision.
When the working party was established, I refused to see the chairman on his own because, I said, if I did that somebody might say that I had nobbled him before he had even started. I said that I would see the whole working party together so that Jack Marsden, the PA


Management Consultants' representative, would hear everything that I said. I spelt out to the members of the working party that within their terms of reference they were absolutely free men in the way they behaved and in the recommendations that they made.
It has been suggested also that we then tried to rush the process. An agreed date of 31st October had been decided for the report of the working party. Although we were paying the losses during this period, I actually extended the time of the working party for a fortnight into November. Far from rushing it, I wanted to ensure that it was able to analyse all the options fully to its own satisfaction.
The working party then reported, and the recommendation was unanimous, including the co-operative's own representative, a member of PA Management Consultants. It unanimously recommended the Worcester solution. The Government did not recommend it. It was not the Government's choice. We had agreed to abide by the decision of the working party, and the co-operative had agreed to it.
KME then held a works meeting, which accepted the recommendation, but at the press conference, as my hon. Friend will confirm, from the very first moment the directors indicated that they intended to use the time of the negotiation to campaign for an NEB solution instead of the recommendation of the working party. with the press present. I made an appeal to everyone at the press conference not to say or do anything which would create an atmosphere which would make successful negotiations impossible, since this seemed to me to be such an important opportunity for KME because it offered the chance of saving 460 jobs, as against the 510 that its own proposition would have saved, but in the view of the working party it offered that prospect with greater security in the long term.
We know that that opportunity has collapsed. One can judge what sort of atmosphere gradually developed during the period of negotiations. I was asked to reconvene the working party to look at a mandatory direction to the National Enterprise Board. I spoke to the chairman of the working party, who said that he felt—he wrote to me emphasising this —that he saw no point in reassembling

it since his view was that whoever went in with KME, be it in its co-operative form or in private form, needed to be fully committed. That is why the chairman of the working party was opposed to the PA Management Consultants' formula for putting some of its people in. He felt that whoever went in should not go in on a one-year or two-year basis, with a feeling of transience, but had to be fully and firmly committed to the wellbeing and survival of the co-operative. That is what he said, and I believe—I am speaking from memory—that he even said it at the press conference that was held.
I provided finance during the period of the working party and also during the negotiations. During that period I paid £155,000 to facilitate what I thought would be a successful outcome to the cooperative's own formula of a working party. I am sorry that it eventually collapsed.
It has to be borne in mind that despite its full order book the co-operative is still losing £1 million a year, and one has therefore to accept that there is something fundamentally wrong in the way in which it operates.
I was told that I should have a project from the co-operative on Monday. I have no idea what form this will take, because it did not arrive on Monday. I am now told that I shall get it by six o'clock tomorrow evening. Obviously, under the Industry Act there is a statutory obligation on the Government to consider all meaningful applications that come forward. The Government will, of course, fulfil their obligations in that respect and will consider the application on its merits, but the aim of everyone, I suggest, must be to save the maximum number of jobs for the longest possible time. It is longterm viability that matters, and that is what any project should be judged by.

LEAD POLLUTION

11.35 p.m.

Mrs. Joyce Butler: I am grateful to have this opportunity of raising the subject of lead pollution, under class VIII. I think that I have almost lost count of the number of times that I have been involved in debates on lead pollution, but the nature of these debates has


subtly changed over the years. The change is due to the steadily accumulating evidence that the fears that some of us have had about the danger of adding lead to petrol are now shared by the general public and are backed up by a growing number of authoritative researches.
Some of these researches include the studies of child behaviour by Dr. Oliver David, of the Brooklyn Medical Centre, Dr. Needleman's findings at Harvard University, and the recent report on "Spaghetti junction" in Birmingham, to which the Minister who is to reply wrote the foreword, in which he admits that it gives some indication that there may be a problem of lead intake for some preschool children living in central areas. Even more recently, Dr. Gerhard Winneke, of Dusseldorf university, has carried out a study that yields supporting evidence of a connection between a chronic increase in lead absorption in early childhood and neuro-psychological injury.
With these and a number of other reports, I have been disappointed that the Government are sticking to their intention not to reduce the lead added to petrol to 0·40 grammes per litre before 1st January 1981. I had hoped that with this evidence they would bring the date forward, because it is still a good two years ahead.
I also pay tribute to the work of people like Professor Bryce-Smith, of Reading university, and Dr. Stephens, of Binning-ham, who have been very painstaking in their work on lead pollution and are very helpful.
At the very least, I believe that the present programme should be speeded up, and I shall ask the Minister whether he can tell us whether there is any intention of doing so. I seriously question whether this further research, which was indicated in reply to my Question to the Secretary of State for Transport on 6th December, is necessary before proscribing lead additives in petrol altogether. I should be grateful if the Minister could tell us what further information the Government are seeking in those studies.
The original justification for adding lead to petrol is scarcely valid in the light of modern developments, such as new

anti-knocking alternatives, for example, and now that the United States, Japan and West Germany have been using virtually lead-free petrol, apparently without serious problems, for varying periods, it would seem that only the will is lacking in this country to follow suit.
I know that some of my hon. Friends who are expert in this matter will have something to say later in the debate, but I want to turn to a favourite argument of Ministers replying to debates on this subject, namely, that lead is a danger in many ways other than in petrol. One of the most persistent sources of lead poisoning is represented by the 2 million and more kitchen taps that are supplied by water through lead piping.
There are numerous studies of the risk caused to unborn children from this source, because there is a link between children's mental retardation and the lead content of the water drunk by their mothers during pregnancy. Nobody supposes that all these lead pipes and cisterns, or even a fraction of them, can be replaced within a reasonable period of time. This is, therefore, a source of danger that it is difficult if not impossible to remove. Certainly it cannot be done without considerably more financial help to householders to replace lead pipes and cisterns.
But lead is also absorbed through food, as is evidenced by the recent proposals for the revision of the lead in food regulations and by the concern of the Food Additives and Contaminants Committee to seek reductions in the lead level in the diet of young children, in addition to its specific provisions for a maximum lead level of 0·2 mg. per kilogramme in specific infant foods.
Despite regulations, canned foods not specifically marketed for children are another source of lead contamination because of the use of lead-containing solders to seal the cans, These should at least be labelled as unfit for consumption by infants and young children. The fact remains that, for example, fish from British coastal waters, which young children may eat, have been found to contain an average of as much as 0·66 mg. per kilogramme of lead.
Even more significant, lead levels in vegetables and fruit, which are so important to young children, will, in


general, be in excess of the maximum "baby food" lead level if they are grown near busy roads, as a result of fall-out from exhaust of petrol-engined vehicles. Levels ranging from five to 55 times the "baby food" level can be expected, and sometimes even more, and there is no prospect of reducing this significant source of food contamination while lead continues to be added to petrol.
Nor can we expect to eliminate the risk to children living in old premises that are decorated with paints that have a heavy lead content. Where children pick at and bite this old paint, as many do at a certain age, they will continue to be at serious risk.
I conclude that as so many of these traditional sources of lead hazard to children will remain it is even more important to tackle the one task that poses no real technical problem, namely, the complete removal of lead from petrol, rather than to argue, as successive Ministers have done, that because it is only one source of lead pollution we should not regard it as a matter of urgency.
I am indebted to an authoritative American paper for a description of the exact nature of the damage to children that lead pollution can cause. This states that
 Due to the very rapid rate of brain growth, the young animal or child is at greater risk for lead-induced neurological damage than the adult. In humans the ' growth spurt' begins during the sixth month of pregnancy and continues into the third or fourth year (of childhood). Permanent neurological deficits can result from an insult to the brain during the growth spurt. Studies of children malnourished during the first two years of life have shown permanent adverse effects on learning ability and general adjustment.
So when we are considering the lead pollution reaching children in aerosol form, from car exhausts or imbibed by children from lead-polluted dust in the vicinity of roadways, that is what we are talking about—an insult to their brains which can cause permanent damage.
The paper continues:
 Taken together the several reports (of studies in children) strongly suggest that both decreased cognitive functioning and an increased frequency of behavioural abnormalities become evident in groups of school-aged children who have been unduly exposed to lead during the pre-school years.

The behavioural aberrations, which include hyperkinesis "—
I was not sure what that meant, but I looked it up in the dictionary and it is "purposeless, uncontrolled muscular movement "—
short attention span and impulsive and aggressive conduct appear to be more important than minimal intellectual deficits in impeding progress at school.
When I read that, I was reminded that a few weeks ago I had a visit to my constituency advice centre from a young woman who had come to see me about a supplementary benefit problem. She had her little boy with her, a child of about 9 years of age. He behaved like a wild animal, constantly hitting and kicking his mother—and me, until I shut him outside—and it was impossible to reason with him or to get through to him in any way. I am not suggesting that his behaviour was caused by lead pollution, but if lead in the atmosphere in the busy traffic area where he lived had aggravated his condition it would not be surprising. Even if children suffering from lead pollution have only a fraction of his abnormality, what a problem they present to the community as well as to their parents and teachers.
The Secretary of State for Transport said, in reply to my Question, that studies are being put in hand to estimate the cost of possible longer-term options for further reducing emissions of lead from petrol. I hope that he will balance against those costs the total economic cost of a national IQ deficit of several points attributable to lead and the cost of lead-related behaviour disorders to society. If this were done the scales would indicate that the cost of using lead-free petrol, whatever it might be, would be cheap at the price.
There is much more to be said, which I shall leave to my hon. Friends, but I hope that the result of the debate will be to move the Government nearer to removing the one form of lead pollution that we have readily under our own control—the pollution that we continue to create by adding lead to petrol.

11.46 p.m.

Mr. Tony Durant: I am pleased to join in the debate and I congratulate the hon. Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Butler), who has taken a


close interest in many health matters, particularly preventive medicine. It is appropriate that she should have opened the debate.
I congratulate also the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker), who has taken this cause unto himself and has fought hard on this matter after an initial constituency background to the problem. He has taken the discussion further with all his work and research.
Professor Bryce-Smith is a constituent of mine and I have a number of other constituents who take environmental matters very seriously. That is why I am taking part in this important debate.
Oil companies have been using small amounts of lead in the manufacture of petrol for about 40 years. This is not a new problem. It has always been the most effective way of producing the petrol quality needed and has been used in the belief that it did not give rise to health hazards. It has always been felt that it improved the quality of petrol and that that was important.
In 1971 the Government carried out an inquiry into the effects of lead on health. The chief medical officer of health stated that levels of lead through exhaust emissions at that time did not constitute a health hazard, but that in view of the increasing number of cars on the road it would be advisable to take steps to avoid an increase in the total level of emissions. As far back as 1971, anxieties were beginning to be expressed that because of the increasing number of cars and emissions the problem of lead pollution should be looked at.
In 1972 the Government announced a series of reductions in lead levels in petrol to take place over a period of years and were given the oil companies' voluntary compliance with these proposals. The oil companies worked with the Government and began to consider reductions in lead levels.
In March 1976 the Government made a further announcement on lead levels, requiring a reduction from a maximum of 0·55 grammes per litre to 0·50 grammes later that year, with further reductions to 0·45 grammes by 1978. Oil companies have carried out these reductions, and it ought to be made clear that we are the people who must decide these levels.

Oil companies will merely carry out our instructions. We cannot always pick on the multinationals. It is our job to cite what is right and proper. The amount of lead used in petrol is entirely within the control of the Government, who take into account very seriously any potential threat to health.
The main point of the oil companies is that, given that emissions below a certain level have not been shown to be harmful, the use of lead is a far more effective and economical method of producing the quality of petrol needed for cars in current use. Any alternative would require the use of extra crude oil and high investment costs for new plant.
We have a particular problem, because we promote the small motor car. That requires a high lead intake into a gallon of petrol to make it work to the high performance expected by the customer. This has been a pressure in this country more than in many others. It has not been such a problem in America, with its large cars. Even Germany has not experienced the same problem. I am not defending the oil companies ; I am trying to express a balanced argument.
We do not know how much it would cost to remove the lead from petrol and meet the requirements of car engines, but a Minister, in answer to a Question tabled by the hon. Member for Perry Barr, said that it was estimated that it would add £30 million a year to Britain's bill for imported crude oil.
There have been many studies on lead. The hon. Member for Wood Green mentioned several of them. We have had the Gerhard Winneke report, from West Germany, which is of importance ; the report by Dr. Herbert Needleman, of the Harvard Medical Schools, and the report by Dr. Robert Stephens, of Birmingham university. The hon. Member for Perry Barr will take a particular interest in his report. We have also had a report from Dr. Oliver David of the Medical Centre, Brooklyn, who studied the effects of lead on delinquency. Professor Bryce-Smith has also made a report.
Professor Bryce-Smith is dogmatic about lead. In any discussion he would say "Just a minute, lead in pipes is just as lethal if one does not run off gallons of water before one boils a kettle." We must keep the matter in balance. The


professor is a strong advocate of reducing the amount of lead in petrol.
One of the most interesting recent reports is that which caused excitement on both sides of the House because it was thought that it was being hushed up. I refer to the report from Harwell, which was instigated by the Government and the oil companies. One of the most interesting issues that came out of the report was the following statement:
When volunteers inhaled the ambient lead aerosol while seated near a motorway or travelling in cars in heavy traffic, the average deposition (deduced from the lead concentrations in the inhaled and exhaled air) was 61 per cent. near the motorway, 64 per cent. near a busy roundabout, and 4·8 per cent. along urban roads. The results near the motorway were in line with those for the wind-tunnel experiments. Those from the urban roads were higher than expected from the laboratory work for reasons that were not fully understood. Impaction of larger particles in the urban aerosol in the upper respiratory tract may have contributed to its high deposition ".
That proves that although the motorway is one of the principal offenders—particularly in areas such as "Spaghetti junction "—when there is a traffic bottleneck and a constant coming and going at traffic lights there is a high concentration.
Our local environmental health officers carried out some experiments with cabbages in an area near traffic lights. It was found that there was a high incidence of lead on the surface of those cabbages. It could be argued that a person should wash the cabbages, but if he has an allotment near such an area and he always feeds from that allotment, he constantly takes in lead. That is a serious matter.
If we accept the problem, what are the choices of cure? We may start by saying that we should reduce the lead content in petrol. We have heard the arguments of the hon. Member for Wood Green that that is possibly the answer. However, there are problems to be faced. There would be a cost to the oil industry. There would be a cost to the nation. It is calculated that the price of oil would increase by about 10 per cent. if lead additives were removed completely. The increased cost might be less if there were a phasing out. There is also the cost of the new cracker devices in the refineries. That cost would be passed on to the consumer. That factor must be taken into account.
We must consider the cost to the consumer. The cost of petrol could easily in-

crease. For environmental reasons that may not be a bad consequence, but it is a factor that must be taken into account. The cost of cars may be more expensive. A side effect may be that the cost of running cars would increase. In my opinion we should opt for the filter system.
The Warren Spring laboratory has done some work on filtering systems. A system for the average motor car to filter lead and other bad additives in the atmosphere, such as carbon monoxide, could remove many dangerous substances and give us a cleaner environment. I understand that Warren Spring undertook considerable research and that unfortunately it has been put to one side. I urge the Government to try to promote that research, because a filter system may be one of the easiest ways of dealing with the problem.
I have spoken to a number of people in the motor car industry and they calculate that it would cost about £100 per car to install a filter system. I accept that that seems quite a large sum, especially as the system has to be renewed about every two years. That is one of the disadvantages. Such a system would filter the lead and the carbon monoxide. That may be the best approach. The cost to the nation of removing lead overnight might be more than we could stand, bearing in mind, for example, the high cost of petrol deliveries.
The Government should consider the options. They should tell us that they have considered the various approaches, that they have all the scientific evidence, and that there is no need for further evidence. The Government should produce a White Paper to set out the way in which they visualise the problem being tackled. The production of a White Paper would allow the House to argue the matter in a reasonable and informed manner.
As the hon. Member for Perry Barr so often says, we constantly hear Ministers saying "We are considering the matter. We want more research." Surely there is enough evidence. We do not need any more evidence to tell us that there is a problem. We need the Government to present the options.
The first option is to remove the lead. That may be expensive and may create more problems than it cures. The second option is to introduce and install filter systems. There may be disagreement with


my figure of £100. I have made a number of inquiries and have been told that that would be the approximate cost, but I could be wrong. At least we should know which is the best alternative. There is a serious problem for those in urban areas.
I ask the Government to provide the various options and not to continue fobbing us off by saying that there is a need for more evidence and more facts. We have enough. Now is the time to produce the evidence, so that we may find the best way of dealing with the problem. That is what I hope will emerge from the debate.

11.58 p.m.

Mrs. Audrey Wise: The fact that we can take in lead from various sources should not lead us to say "The air is only one source of lead pollution, and we must take a balanced approach. We must have a sense of proportion." Far from that being so, that fact should lead us to the view that it is even more imperative to do something about that source of lead.
The case made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Butler) is unanswerable. I was surprised to hear the argument that I have just outlined coming from the hon. Member for Reading, North (Mr. Durant). I do not think that a balanced view should be taken. The more sources of lead that there are, the more imperative it becomes that we tackle those problems that can be tackled. It is astonishing that the argument about the cost to the oil industry and to the nation is still heard.
I have no objections to a White Paper, but I agree that such a White Paper should talk not about the need for working parties and more research but about doing something. However, I am sceptical about the hon. Member's approach, because there is a danger that he is creating further problems and obstacles. The most straightforward and correct thing to do would be to remove substantially the lead from petrol.
The matter is urgent. The fact that it has been treated in a low-key manner, with bland statements and reassurances, has produced a kind of crisis. We are very late in dealing with this situation,

which has been dealt with far more satisfactorily by other countries—particularly West Germany and the United States, whose praises I do not normally sing. Compared with these two countries, our position is disgraceful.
The latest reports show that we are breathing in three times as much lead as was previously thought. We are breathing in a metal that is a very strong poison in small quantities. It is suspected of disturbing the growth of nervous systems in young persons and reducing intelligence in children. I am pleased to see the work that has been done by the Yorkshire Post in this regard. But this is a matter that should not be left to the press, though the Yorkshire Post does deserve our congratulations.
Undoubtedly there is evidence from West Germany and the United States, some of which has been quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green, that more lead is taken in by children than was previously thought. The effects of this at the higher levels of what was previously regarded as "normal" can be absolutely devastating.
There can be no greater cost to the nation than to have our children taking into their bodies a substance that causes impairment of intelligence, amounting to seven points difference in IQ. United States evidence shows that there are subtle effects on the brain, causing psychological and behavioural problems.
I have no doubt that in mentioning the case of the little boy who came to her surgery my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green was remembering the discussions we had on the Select Committee dealing with battered children. Over and over again we heard of babies and toddlers with inexplicable behavioural difficulties for which doctors could find no explanation or treatment. This caused unbearable stress, which sometimes led to ill treatment. It is intolerable that we should sit idly by, as we have been doing, instead of tackling what might well be a contributory factor to this.
I understand that a working party on lead pollution, particularly from car exhausts, and its suspected effects on children, is now to be set up by the DHSS. Quite candidly, I do not really want a working party to study that. If


the working party comes out with different results from those of the West German and the United States experiments, shall we be expected to say that ours is clearly a work of better quality and that we believe it all and are all reassured? I shall not say that, and I am sure that many people in this country will have the same reaction.
If the results of a fresh working party apparently contradict the work that has already been done, it will be viewed with considerable scepticism. If the results confirm the work that has already been done, it will only have caused extra delay, and we shall still be faced with the problems, which are supposed to be so difficult, of cost, of balance of payments, and so on. The problems will not have disappeared. It is a completely mad way of dealing with the problem.
I believe that the Government could get themselves far more justifiable credit in this matter if they were to say "We have been late in dealing with this. Now we have evidence that the problem is worse than we thought and that people are breathing in more lead than we thought, and the effect of breathing in this lead is detrimental to children. Therefore with all speed we shall take action about it."
I am absolutely sure, speaking from the Midlands, and from a constituency based to a great extent on the manufacture of cars, that the reaction there to such an announcement by the Government would be of overwhelming gratitude. It is precisely areas such as the Midlands, with the network of motorways, motorway junctions and built-up areas, that are at risk from lead pollution. It will be an unbearable irony if fathers who are helping to make cars are put in the position that, because of the unsuitable nature of the fuel put into those cars, their own kids are damaged by the resulting fuel emissions. I believe this to be demonstrably the case and I urge the Government to take very early action.
In West Germany, where the Government have taken such action, the Minister concerned—the Minister of Transport—has said that there has not been a significant increase in the demand for crude oil in the German Federal Republic. He has said that the reason why the Government took the step they did was that they realised that the concentration of lead

compounds in automobile exhaust gases constitutes a health hazard for the population. If the West German Government can recognise a health hazard for their population, surely our Labour Government in this country can recognise a health hazard for our population. Surely they can take action at least equal to that taken in West Germany.
In West Germany, according to the Ministry of the Interior, as a result of the action taken, the lead content of the air has been reduced by up to 60 per cent. If my right hon. Friend the Minister of State were associated with that sort of development, it would be something of which he could be for ever proud. It would be far more important than being a purveyor either of drought or rainfall.

The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Mr. Denis Howell): I am a curer, not a purveyor.

Mrs. Wise: Sometimes the cure was worse than the complaint. My right hon. Friend has an opportunity here to take note of these points and to do something about them. If he does, I am sure that there will be a favourable response from the population. If he does not, there will be trouble about it. At present, this discussion is largely at the level of the scientists ; it has not penetrated very much into the mind of the person who came to the surgery. She is not conscious of this sort of thing, but she will become conscious of it, and the amount of anger that will be engendered among people, and the fear that they will experience, will be enormous.
However careful the steps that have been taken, it is not possible to keep these things to a restricted audience. It is impossible to do so. We are now on the verge of this issue becoming very much part of the consciousness of ordinary people. They will not be prepared to put up with talk about the balance of payments or the cost to the oil industry when they think that their kids are threatened by this kind of trouble.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green described this as an insult to the developing brains of our children. It is an insult to the Members of this House and to British people in general to think that they will tolerate this situation indefinitely. If the Government do not


take note of the insult to children's brains, they will have to take note of the fact that we will not tolerate our intelligence being insulted by dilatoriness on this matter.
When my right hon. Friend made his reassuring statements in the past I do not believe that he could have been aware of the information that is now available. It is precisely because he has made reassuring statements that I look to him to be even more zealous in correcting this matter, now that it has been shown quite clearly that the lead is there, is being breathed in, and is a danger to our infants.
There is also the fact that the streams of particles that are not breathed in are dropping down into dusts, including household dusts. Because of the things that kids do, such as licking their fingers, they are taking in more lead that way. It also drops on to soil and vegetables. As a result, all those who have allotments or gardens near roads will become conscious of the fact that in growing their own food, because they think it is more healthy, they may be taking in more poison than may be contained in the stuff at the greengrocer's.
The fact that these particles are able to find their way into the soil, vegetables, water and air, and in this way are taken into the human body and stored, is something that this House cannot ignore, and something on which the Government must take urgent action.

12.14 a.m.

Mr. J. W. Rooker: Like the hon. Member for Reading, North (Mr. Durant), I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Butler) initiated this debate, mainly for two reasons. First, she has followed this subject for a far longer period than I. She has been in the House a long time and has pursued the problem with great diligence. Secondly, it shows that the benefit of spreading the load around on the Ballot for the Consolidated Fund Bill debate means that one does not have to wait until debate No. 25, as I would have done, but can take part in debate No. 2.
I am pleased to see my right hon. Friend the Minister of State. I hope that he will answer the debate rather than

read out the prepared speech that he has brought with him, because I have not yet seen him make any notes. I make that point in a friendly spirit, because I do not want to cause any trouble.

Mr. Denis Howell: I am glad to tell my hon. Friend that he has not yet seen me make notes because so far I have anticipated every point that has been raised in the notes that I have prepared.

Mr. Rooker: That is excellent. It is a pity that when I last raised this subject, on the last Consolidated Fund Bill debate in the early hours of 2nd August, my right hon. Friend was on the other side of the world, following his duties at the Commonwealth Games or the World Cup. I shall not repeat that earlier speech, but I am entitled to refer to four topics that I mentioned to which no answers have yet been given. I shall give the column references from Hansard if my right hon. Friend wants to reply to them, but if he has come prepared with the answers, that is even better.
The topics related to the report of the working party on lead pollution in Birmingham, following the study around "Spaghetti junction" initiated by the Minister four years ago after my Adjournment debate of 2nd April 1974, one month after I became a Member of this House. So my interest in the subject dates almost from the day that I took my place here.
The Birmingham report is now being quoted in academic journals, in the Harwell report, for instance. It has been described by some academics—perhaps unfairly—as a fiasco and has suffered many other criticisms. There has been no answer to the questions that I raised as reported in Hansard, at column 573 of Vol. 955.
I talked then of the survey, techniques and about how the sample of children was obtained. The parents were to blame for the poor response, and there was a follow-up, but those conducting it did not seem sufficiently aware of the problems of the inner areas of Birmingham. They therefore took an artificial sample of children in Sutton Coldfield, which changed the point of the exercise and distorted the figures. We still have not been told why these techniques were chosen.
I raised a more substantial point in cols. 574 and 575 of Hansard about the


hospital where the children had to go. Why was it Good Hope hospital, when the children could have gone to the children's hospital in the city centre or to Dudley Road hospital, either of which could have done the blood level checks? It is difficult to ask parliamentary questions about a report such as this although it was published by the Department of the Environment.
At col. 576 of Hansard—I hope that the Minister will not gloss over this—I said that although we have reduced the amount of lead per litre and plan to reduce it still further, we shall still, by 1981, be pushing more lead into the atmosphere than we are today because of the growth of traffic.

Mr. Denis Howell indicated dissent.

Mr. Rooker: That is in dispute, as is everything that we shall say tonight. That is why we shall keep pressing. My statement was not refuted by the Minister on that occasion. There is evidence that the lead in the atmosphere will increase as the tonnage of traffic grows.
I wish to deal with foreign experience, particularly that of West Germany, in more detail. At column 578 of Hansard I quoted information that may have been incorrect. It was from an article that appeared in the Yorkshire Post in October 1977. Mr. Ratcliffe was quoting American motor industry moguls who claimed that reducing the levels of lead in petrol resulted in a lower overall cost of motoring. This took into account an extra 4 cents a gallon for lead-free petrol. Maintenance savings at 1970 prices, according to a Mr. Gunness, who gave evidence before the sub-committee on public health and welfare of the United States Congress, would have been as much as $45 on a year's 15,000 miles of motoring. So the net cost of motoring, which is what concerns the motorist, is reduced.
What contact has there been between my right hon. Friend's Department and the American motor industry? Clearly this massive industry has an interest to defend. If it is making these claims the British Government should be taking cognisance of them. We are often told that British Governments do anything that American Governments tell them. It would be nice if the American Government would tell our Government to reduce the

lead content of petrol. Perhaps that is how we shall get action in the end.
I hope that at some future date we shall get answers to the points that I raised on the report on lead pollution in Birmingham, which has caused considerable disquiet in the city and in research circles.
I wish now to move on to the two reports published by the Warren Spring laboratory in the summer of this year. They were reports on what is known as the multi-elements survey. They dealt respectively with the first and second years' results. The hon. Member for Caernarvon (Mr. Wigley) asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what routine steps were being taken to monitor the level of lead in the atmosphere in urban areas. My right hon. Friend answered that the Warren Spring laboratory had measured lead levels at 20 urban sites over the past two years and he said:
 The results of both these studies will be published shortly.—[Official Report, 12th July 1978; Vol. 953, c. 654.]
When I saw, on coming back after the Summer Recess, that there had been no press comment on this matter, I tabled a Question asking when the reports would be published. My right hon. Friend informed me that they had been published in August and copies had been placed in the Library. I thank him, because copies were enclosed in the answer to me.
I do not think, however, that publication meant putting copies in the Library. I rang the Warren Spring laboratory and asked the research director how the reports were published. There is no price or Command number on the front of them. I asked how we were expected to know that the reports had been published. I was told that every quarter a list of all the laboratory's publications was compiled and these were sent out to libraries, to researchers, and so on, and that people could pick out of those reports anything in which they were interested.
I said that the reply was unsatisfactory. I confirmed that neither of the reports had been sent to Professor Bryce-Smith or to Dr. Stephens, at Birmingham university, the two main dissidents in the argument. One would have thought that if the laboratory had had something positive to say in defence of the status quo, it would have drawn the attention of those two gentlemen to it. It did not do so, and


therefore I am left wondering about the reports. There has been hardly any press comment. I do not think that a press statement was issued when the reports were published. I looked in the Library and I was unable to find one in the box.
Three points must be raised about the Warren Spring report. These points all come from the first year's results, because that is the report that contains the discussion. It is quite clearly stated there—as if there were any doubt about it—that the lead in the air, which is what was being measured,
 is considered to arise mostly from the use of lead alkali anti-knock derivatives used in petrol-driven motor vehicles.
There seemed to be some doubt where the lead in the air came from in some of our parliamentary Questions and debates. Quite clearly, the report says "mostly ". I have now seen figures stating that 95 per cent. of lead in the air emanates from petrol-driven motor vehicles.
However, the significant thing about the report was that lead levels had been measured, plus those of other dangerous metals as well—arsenic, beryllium cadmium, and so on; I shall not bore the House with the whole list, because we are dealing only with lead—at 20 different sites around the country. Many of the measurements at these sites were taken at 30 ft. to 40 ft. above ground level. Basically, they were not taken at a level of air that critizens are breathing. They were certainly not taken at the level of air that little five-year-olds are breathing. I shall quote a few examples because they are useful.
At the manor clinic location at Ridgeway Road, Sheffield, the monitor was 10 metres above ground level. At the civic centre, Newport, Gwent, it was 10 metres above ground level. At Lanchester polytechnic, in Coventry, the monitor was located 25 metres—over 75 ft.—above ground level. At Market Buildings, Vicar Lane, Leeds, the monitor was 15 metres above ground level. There was one monitor 4 metres above ground level. That was at the transport depot, Lime Street, Grangemouth. I think that that was the lowest-placed monitor of all of them.
In all 20 locations, lead, as opposed to all the other metals, stood out like a sore thumb as a major pollutant. The system

that was used was the threshold limit value divided by 40, and a mean percentage was taken. On every occasion lead was well into ordinary digits. In some cases it was 31. In others it was 21, 21 and 15. Altogether metals were below I and well below ·1 in many cases.
The last point to which I refer in the Warren Spring report, because it is important, is in respect of the part of the country that I represent and that my right hon. Friend the Minister of State represents. In the references to the first Warren Spring report, on page 9, reference 10 says:
Data from a confidential report.
Looking up what item 10 refers to in the column of pollutants, in table 3, I find that it is a
 UK industrial midlands report.
It says
 1973. No further information from this report can be supplied.
I should like to know what that report is. No one in Birmingham or the Midlands to whom I have talked knows what that report is. I cannot for the life of me see why that report, which is now quoted as a reference in order to put tables together in a Government report, is classed as confidential and why it is said that no further information can be obtained.
That may not be one of the points that my right hon. Friend will mention tonight. He seems to be indicating that it is not likely that he will do so. I should like an assurance that someone will give me an answer at some time about that report. I know that my right hon. Friend will at least look into that matter.
We have heard a lot about the experience of West Germany. I shall not take up a lot of our time, but it is important to bear in mind that the Germans are closer to us than are Japan and America. The Germans are fellow members of the Community. That is something that my right hon. Friend supports. He nods with approval. One would suppose, therefore, that if there were a reason for the things that have been done in Germany, in terms of social and health policies and environmental protection—they have cut the amount of lead in petrol to one-third of what it is in Britain, to ·15 grammes per litre—we might have some lessons to learn from the West Germans.
A citizen of Britain, a Mr. Albery, has had occasion—I shall not go into the background or the reasons why—to write to various Governments and companies asking them various questions. One of the letters that he wrote was to the West German Minister of Transport, dated 19th July. He asked a series of questions. I shall not read them all. I shall certainly not read all the answers, because my right hon. Friend has had copies of all the correspondence. But it will be for the benefit of the House and of the record if I mention at least two or three of these. The first question was:
 What made the West German Government decide that the EEC level of ·45 grammes per litre of lead was too high, and that a reduction should be made to ·15 grammes per litre? 
The basis of the answer, from the Minister for Transport, was:
 The basis of the West German Government's decision to enact legislation for the lowering of the lead content (of petrol)… was the realisation that the concentration of lead compounds in automobile exhaust gases constitutes a health hazard for the population. Lead and its compounds have long been recognised everywhere as one of the most toxic elements in existence. The lead emissions of exhaust gases are particularly dangerous in this respect since they occur in the form of minute particles which reach the pulmonary tract in respired air.
It went on to state—this is where I got the figure of 95 per cent:
Over 95 per cent. of the total lead in the atmosphere is derived from lead added to petrol.".
One of the further questions asked by Mr. Albery was whether there had been any problems about makes of motor cars. We are a motor manufacturing nation. We live on our exports. This is, therefore, an important point to be taken on board. Mr. Albery asked:
 Are there some makes of car which cannot run on this low-leaded fuel without adjustment? If so, what adjustments have you found to be necessary and about how much do they cost?
The answer was:
 According to the reports received from car manufacturers, lowering of the lead content of petrol has caused no major problems except in the cases of a few makes with high-compression engines. In this context, the agreement between the motor car and petrol manufacturing industries which led to the definition of minimal standards (of petrol)… is most important. The maintenance of these minimal standards is constantly being checked.

Mr. Albery asked a further question:
 Have any benefits been shown?
That is, benefits from the change in the law.
The answer was:
 According to the Ministry of the Interior… the lead content of the air has been reduced up to 60 per cent.
The lead content of the air in West Germany has been reduced by up to 60 per cent. by the passage of this law.
The next question was:
 Did it force any refineries out of business? Perhaps the smaller ones?
He offered a gateway in his question. The answer was:
 No refineries have been forced out of business.
Mr. Albery then asked how they managed to cope with the energy changes required and what they had been able to do to keep the octane level high, although they had low-leaded petrol. The answers are lengthy, and it would not be fair to read them in full, because my right hon. Friend has all this information.
One interesting point which has come out of Mr. Albery's investigations relates to the Ford Motor Company. It is well known that the company manufactures in this country and in West Germany. All the Capris and Granadas sold in this country are made in West Germany. The components are the same. In Germany those cars have to be able to run on petrol containing one-third of the amount of lead that is used in this country. That is common sense.
Ford has claimed in writing that all Ford cars sold in this country since 1975 were able to run on low-lead petrol—the same amount of lead in petrol as in West Germany. They will require some modification, because the octane level has to be increased, but they are able to do it. Therefore, there cannot be any argument by our motor manufacturers. That point has to be borne in mind because of the multinational nature of our motor car industry. Ford will obviously claim not to he responsible for causing brain damage to children. It will claim that its cars are able to run on low-lead petrol, if it is available. We cannot blame Ford for that, but that seems to have passed by the Department of the Environment.
Of course, we shall hear a lot from my right hon. Friend about balance of


payments, costs and everything else. He indicates" No."

Mr. Denis Howell: Something.

Mr. Rooker: Well, something; not a lot. I want to draw my right hon. Friend's attention to a quarter-page Mobil advertisement in The Times—late— lamented—on 22nd November headed:
British is not necessarily best.
The advertisement refers to differences between North Sea and Arabian crude oil and what can be done with it—for example, how much petrol can be obtained from a barrel of crude oil, and so on. It says:
 Since Beryl crude is lighter, it produces more petrol and more jet fuel. Arabian crude on the other hand is excellent for lubricants, which cannot at present be produced commercially from Beryl crude. Arabian crude is also fine for heavy fuels and bitumen… A £120 million project is under way to construct a new Fluid Catalytic Cracker (FCC) and related equipment. When the FFC unit is installed we'll be able to upgrade the barrel' —to make an extra 800,000 gallons of petrol a day from the same amount of crude run.
Mobil is saying, for all to read, that given the nature of its own investment it will be able to get more petrol out of a barrel of North Sea oil than it does now. It is already getting more petrol out of a barrel of North Sea oil than out of a barrel of Arabian oil.
Arabian oil might be used for lubricants, but the lead deposits in the engine that do not go out of the exhaust pipe, but are stuck in the sump, damage the lubricating oils. Those oils, according to Mobil, are imported from Arabia at a great cost to the balance of payments. The very oil that costs more and we have to import is being destroyed by the additives that go into it when it is in the engine. Therefore it must be changed more often, and so we need to import more.
My right hon. Friend must meet the point made in the advertisement. I do not know whether Mobil is telling the truth, but one presumes that if it takes a quarter-page advertisement in The Times it has something to tell the world.
There is a remarkable silence from the oil companies on the question of lead pollution from petrol. Some would say that there is a conspiracy of silence. For

the first time the oil companies are blazoning to the world what they can do.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bebington and Ellesmere Port (Mr. Bates) has a constituency interest. Octel, the only company that makes the lead additive, is based in his constituency. Octel's library, which has been surreptitiously purged, contains documents produced before 1974 which state that the company knows that the lead is damaging and that it is concerned about the matter. Those documents are available, but they have not been published. Why not? Why cannot my right hon. Friend ask the oil companies to publish all the documents, so that there are no confidential or secret reports? I know that those are emotive words. No Minister likes to be accused of hiding a secret. No doubt we shall hear more about that.

Mr. Denis Howell: My hon. Friend will.

Mr Rooker: Before we do, I want to deal with the Harwell report. I shall not quote from the published copy, but I shall make three points about its contents and the assumptions made, after I have talked about the cost. What has bred suspicion about the report is the fact that, in the words of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Energy on 22nd November 1978:
 The research was sponsored through the Institute of Petroleum."—[Official Report, 22nd November 1978; Vol. 958, c. 622.]
In that reply to a Question by me, he did not say that the research was sponsored by the Department of Energy, the Department of the Environment or the Department of Health and Social Security. He said that the total cost was £119,000, about 67 per cent. funded by central Government.
My hon. Friend gave me the exact figures on 30th November, in a Written Answer which appeared in column 264 of Hansard for that date. He said that the total of £119,000 was funded 32 per cent. by industry—I am not sure what that meant—18 per cent. by the Department of the Environment, 42 per cent. by the Department of Energy and 8 per cent. by the DHSS. I am worried about the fact that there has been some industrial sponsorship.
What is the status of the Institute of Petroleum in funding or sponsoring a


report published under the aegis of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority at Harwell, with the names of respected researchers on the front? The report was also funded by the International Lead Zinc Research Organisation.
It makes me wonder whether such organisations are paying for research to be done in a public institution. I seriously question whether it is in the public interest that work on public health, carried out in the public sector, should remain unpublished, in some cases, because the industrial sponsors say so. My right hon. Friend nods his head. In my question of 30th November I asked the Minister to
 list all research projects carried out at AERE in the past 10 years on the subject of lead pollution where any part of the cost has been contributed by private industry.
I was told that in addition to the two reports bearing the name of Dr. Chamberlain, of which this is the second, there had been:
 two other projects, one costing £4,400 and the other £9,500. Both were 100 per cent. supported by industry and commissioned on the basis of commercially confidential contracts. In these circumstances the Department is not able to publish the reports and I regret that further information cannot be given."—[Official Report, 30th Nov. 1978; Vol 959, c. 263–4.]
I put a direct question to my right hon. Friend. Will he undertake to ask the sponsors of these reports to give their approval to the publication of the reports? My right hon. Friend can refuse to ask the question, but it will not cost him anything if I ask it. It would be interesting to know what the sponsors would say. They have used public sector investment at Harwell, funded by the taxpayer, to produce reports directly affecting the health of citizens of this country, yet the reports are not to be published because they say so. That is not good enough.

Mr. Denis Howell: I am not sure which of the reports that my hon. Friend says have been commissioned at Harwell have not been published. I shall look into this and write to him. To the best of my knowledge, all of the reports affecting my Department, which we have commissioned—certainly dealing with this specific matter —have been published. Whatever my hon. Friend says about sponsorship, does he not agree that in this area the reputation of our scientists at Harwell is

so pre-eminent, and their integrity is so much beyond doubt, that it would not matter who sponsored their report; they would most certainly, as pure scientists, insist upon their findings being published? In spite of my hon. Friend's criticisms, there can be no doubt about the validity of the work done by these scientists.

Mr. Rooker: I am not impugning anyone. The tragedy is that I have to stand up and make this point. I am forced to this because of the answer to my Question. My Question related to lead pollution and work done at Harwell in the past 10 years, wholly or partly sponsored by industry. There have been four reports. Two have been published. Two others, funded wholly by industry, have not been published. This was at the request of the industrial sponsors.
Either my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Energy was giving a bona fide answer to the House—it is an answer not to me but to the House of Commons—or he was not. I do not believe that industrial sponsors ought to be able to do this. It is not as if they are dealing with new products; we are talking about public health and the public interest.
If new products are involved and there could be commercial problems, that ought to be said. It has not been said. My Question related to lead pollution. I did not talk about product development.

Mr. Durant: May I deal with the point about these reports? The first thing that the hon. Member should realise, as the Minister has said, is that the integrity of the scientists is not in doubt. It is a common practice for scientific establishments of all sorts to undertake scientific work sponsored by whoever. In scientific establishments it has always been the custom that the publishing of those reports is in the hands of the sponsor. That is a right that the person who has paid to have the research carried out should have. The hon. Member should not suggest in what he is saying that the scientists would "bend" the report. They would write their report without fear or favour.
The argument is about publication, and I think that sponsors have a right, if they have paid for it, not to have the research published if they so wish—if their purpose


is to get information for their own industry.

Mr. Rooker: But if the industry itself were more open on the subject there would not be the suspicion, and if the Government's own reports were not partly paid for by private industry there would not be the suspicion. This point must be made. I understand what is said about farming out research contracts. The Rothschild report spoke of research contracts and about research establishments going out to get business. That is a fair point, and most of what the hon. Gentleman has just said has validity, but in this context I cannot see why the reports should not be published. All I am asking my right hon. Friend to do is to ask the sponsors, via Harwell, whether they would have their work published. I cannot see anything wrong in asking. If they refuse, we shall know where we stand.

Mrs. Wise: I am anxious that my hon. Friend should not retreat on this matter. My right hon. Friend said that there was no doubt that the scientists would insist on these things being published. We were then told by the hon. Member for Reading, North (Mr. Durant) that it was common practice for sponsors to say "No, you may not publish ". But these are matters of public health, and that should be overriding. I do not care twopence if the reports cost £4,000 or £400,000. When public health is concerned, if work is done in public institutions there should be publication of the results. The House should insist on it. I hope that my hon. Friend will not retreat on that at all.

Mr. Rooker: Clearly, I could not if I wanted to. But I am not retreating. Because it would come better from a Minister of the Crown than from me, all I originally asked my right hon. Friend to do is to ask the sponsors whether they will allow their work to be published. We ought to have an answer at some future date about that.

Mr. Denis Howell: I am happy to respond to my hon. Friend now. This is the first I have heard of the earlier reports, and I shall inquire into the matter and write to him. I know that he will give full publication to any reply that I send to him. He always does.
The point that I want to make with all the emphasis that I can command, certainly in regard to the work that we ourselves commission—and I think that this would apply to any others—is that the reputation and integrity of the scientists at Harwell, and in particular Dr. Chamberlain, who has been responsible for the two reports commissioned by my Department, are extremely high. I am sure that my hon. Friend does not challenge that. I am grateful to him on that account. Therefore, there can be no valid question about who sponsored the research, if the research itself or the results of the research are published and the scientists' integrity is beyond challenge, as I believe the position to be.

Mr. Rooker: I have made my point. I want to raise three questions on the Harwell report.

Mr. Alf Bates: My hon. Friend mentioned the Associated Octel company and suggested that there were reports by that company, or sponsored by it, which had not been published. I think that my hon. Friend insinuated that they were not for the company's own purposes. Could my hon. Friend tell us which they were, so that I may inquire about it and pass the matter on?

Mr. Rooker: For reasons that will be obvious to my hon. Friend when I explain them to him, I cannot tell him at this moment, in the Chamber, but I shall tell him immediately I sit down. There is no secret about it. For various reasons, if I mentioned it now there could be a bit of a problem for the rest of the debate, and I do not want to put the debate in jeopardy. I shall put my hon. Friend on the right track and tell him who has these reports. I shall not go into that matter further. It is not a red herring; it is an important point of substance.
It is true that I alleged that this was a secret report. I know that a few hon. Members on the Opposition Benches said that it was not going to be published. It is true that the draft that I saw had a note on it "Not for publication ", and it is true that since then I have been told that all reports from Harwell have" Not for publication" on them. But it did not have the word "draft" on it. If I had seen the word "draft" in the title and the note "Not for publication ", I


might have thought "It is obvious that it is a draft ".
This report came via the United States, to the knowledge of academics in this country, with an international reputation. They did not even know that the report was being put together. But when they asked their colleagues—because all these academics are colleagues, whoever pays the bill—" Could we share your work in order to review, comment and so on?" the reply was "No. You can't have it ". When they were told that, quite rightly they thought "Ah, it is a secret report ". That was a natural conclusion to draw. Then, when I saw the report that I was given, not via the Reading university professor, and saw the weights laid out on the front page, I, too, had to draw that conclusion. The report has been published since, and I thank Ministers for it. One has to accept the assurances that it was fully intended to publish.
My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South-West (Mrs. Wise) made the claim that we were sucking in three times more lead than was thought in the past. I hate to contradict her, but the report did not state that as such. It stated that we were getting three times more lead in the blood from the air we breathe than we thought we were
The amount of lead that we are taking in is exactly the same, but the point remains that if we are getting more in the blood from petrol, and so on, we are getting less from food and everything else. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green said, we can do something about the lead in the air, because 95 per cent. of it comes from petrol. It is more difficult to do something about the lead in food.
Their findings would have been acceptable if the Harwell researchers had used the estimates of the intake of lead from food acceptable to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, but they did not do that. They used an estimate of the intake of lead from food as 270 microgrammes per day instead of 170 microgrammes per day, as the Ministry of Agriculture states. I did not get that figure from the answer to my own parliamentary Question, which shows that I should read my answers more carefully. But I got an answer recently from the Ministry of Agriculture which stated, in

reply to my request for a statement on the progress of reducing the lead intake from food:
 Weekly ingestation of lead from food and drink by the average person is about 1·2 milligrammes."—[Official Report, 5th December 1978; Vol. 959, c. 516.]
Divide that by seven, and we have the 170 microgrammes per day.
Why did the Harwell researchers not use the Ministry of Agriculture's figure for the intake of lead from food? Why did they drum up the figure of 270? It was because, by using the higher estimate, they underestimated the amount of lead coming from petrol. That is the natural response. They did the same with another aspect.
In a letter to New Scientiston December 7th, Professor Bryce-Smith commenting on the Harwell report, said that the report had used a main figure of 15 per cent. gastro-intestinal absorption rather than the figure of 10 per cent. used by the World Health Organisation. I should have thought that what was good enough for the WHO would have been good enough for the Harwell researchers. If they are disputing that WHO figure, let them say so. Again, the effect has been that the Harwell researchers have underestimated the amount of lead in the blood that comes from petrol.
The Harwell researchers used as the figure for lead intake from the breathing in of air what Professor Bryce-Smith called the "unrealistically low figure" of 15 cubic metres per day, which was assumed to be the volume of air respired by the average man. The United States National Academy of Sciences, in the report "Airborne Lead in Perspective 1971 ", stated that 23 cubic metres is a better estimate for reference man—the man engaged in light working activity. Again, the figure used by the Harwell researchers would have the effect of underestimating the amount of lead absorbed in the blood from petrol.
Given that they came up with a figure three times greater than they had come up with before, and given that there were at least three factors in the report which combined to make them grossly underestimate the figure that they had come up with before, what are we left with? We are left with a figure that no one can trust.


It is three times greater than their previous figure, and, based on this estimate, there is a good chance that it may be even higher. Cognisance has to be taken of that.
My right hon. Friend will no doubt tell us about the committee that has been set up. We have heard a lot about committees looking into this matter. In reply to a Question of mine the Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Security told me that his Department was establishing a working party
 to review the overall effect on health of environmental lead from all sources 
He added:
 Professor Lawther has agreed to be chairman of the working party, which will include other members of this Committee and experts in the psychological and developmental testing of children."—[Official Report, 13th November 1978; Vol. 958, c. 70.]
One of the functions of the working party will be to review the memorandum sent to my right hon. Friend by the Conservation Society in September, following a meeting that he had with the society earlier in the year. The document was entitled "The Health Effects of Lead on Children: A Review of the Literature published since 1976."
The working party was announced in answer to a Question of mine. I had asked—this is a major plank of my argument tonight; I do not suppose that my right hon. Friend will have an answer, and if he does not I shall understand, but perhaps he will assure the House that he will provide one—the Secretary of State for Social Services whether,
 when the working party referred to in his reply "—
the one to which I have referred—
 is established, he will publish full details of all members, drawing attention to any who have been involved in research wholly or partly sponsored by private industry.
That was a legitimate Question. If these people are to make up the working party, and if what they say is to be the basis of Government policy, it is legitimate to ask whether any of them have been involved in work wholly or partly sponsored by private industry.
I did not get my Question answered. I was given a list of all the members, which is fair enough. At the end of his reply, my right hon. Friend said:

 All members of expert committees advising my Department in the field of toxicology are required to declare to Ministers and the chief medical officer any current pecuniary interests—for example from consultancies—in the fields in which they advise."—[Official Report, 29th November 1978; Vol. 959, c. 272–73.]
I did not ask that; I asked whether we could be told which of those members had been involved in research wholly or partly sponsored by private industry. I am aware that anyone joining a Government establishment or committee would declare an interest in any current research that he was undertaking in the field. That is fairly obvious. I understand that, but that was not my question.

Mr. Nigel Spearing: Typical.

Mr. Rooker: Of course it is typical. Nevertheless, the Question was not answered. Why? Because of the worst motives on my part, I have to assume that there is something to hide.
I have not counted the members—there are about nine or ten—but perhaps every one of them has been involved in such work. I want to draw the attention of the House to two members of the working party. It is important to know whether these people have a clean slate, as I shall call it, and will consider the matter objectively. Perhaps my right hon. Friend can tell me why the Question was not answered. Perhaps, also, he will give me an assurance that he will undertake to let us know whether these people have been engaged in any of the work to which I have referred.
It has been put to me that the composition of the working party gives grounds for believing that this exercise is more political than medical or scientific. That is a serious accusation to make against a high-powered committee, but it is a challenge that has to be met with substantive answers.

Mr. Spearing: Did my hon. Friend say that he was making that accusation or has he said who made it? Perhaps he could tell the House.

Mr. Rooker: I was coming to that. I have been feeding out the answers that I have been getting to anyone who has expressed an interest in this subject, because there are points that I shall not pick up and do not understand, and if


anyone has a feedback he will come back to me.
Professor Bryce-Smith wrote to me. I shall not quote all his letter, for many reasons, not just because of its length. No one will deny that he is highly regarded and has spent a considerable time on this subject. I have never met him, and have spoken to him only twice on the telephone. He wrote:
 A number of the persons named are not known to me "—
he does not know everybody—
 as having worked in the fields of environmental lead or lead toxicology. Of those that are known to me, the majority, if not all, are on record as denying the reality of the phenomena most in question, namely adverse effects on mental functions in children caused by lead levels below those which produce the classical symptoms of clinical lead poisoning.
I must underline that he went on to say:
 I am not making any reflection on the integrity of any particular member.
It was a general statement on the group as a whole and the professor was not casting aspersions on any of his colleagues in research. He makes that abundantly clear, and I repeat it for the record.
I have checked some of my sources during the day because I had not come across them before and I understand that Professor Goldberg, the Regius Professor of Medicine at the university of Glasgow, is, according to Professor Bryce-Smith, probably involved with his team on the most important studies of lead pollution in the United Kingdom. His workers are better known for their medical studies on lead than are most, if not all, the members of the working party. Professor Bryce-Smith says that the omission of Professor Goldberg or any of his workers is extremely serious. Professor Bryce-Smith says that as far as he is aware Professor Goldberg has done most of his work independently of industry and commercially interested parties.
I do not know whether that factor is taken into account in deciding the composition of these committees. I cannot tell from the non-answer to my Question, but I should be interested to know whether Professor Goldberg and any of his workers were asked to be members of the working party or were considered for membership.
The other incredible fact is that the working party is to review the memoran-

dum from the Conservation Society, which includes quotes from 30 or 40 papers, but all the experts on the working party and all the Government Departments do not have the papers. I understand that the Conservation Society has been asked to provide copies of all the relevant papers. That has involved going through the files of university professors, doctors and researchers and getting all the papers copied. The people with allegedly expert knowledge of tests on children and toxicology do not even have the papers. What on earth is going on? Why is it that no one has the literature that an outside voluntary body has gone through at its own expense to submit a case which deserves an answer? That is quite a condemnation of our system of government, if nothing else. The Government, and not the Conservation Society, set up the working party.
The hon. Member for Reading, North quoted a paper by Oliver David on sub-clinical lead effects, and a paper by Needleman. On 1st August there was published a paper of four quarto pages by a group at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond. Street, London —very much nearer home. The patron of the hospital is Her Majesty the Queen and the chairman is the wife of the Prime Minister. The paper is entitled
 Comments on two recent papers on the relationship between body lead and neuropsychological disfunction in children.".
The comments represent a negative response. I shall not refer to them in detail.
One of the comments reads:
 Children from families with relatively indifferent parents are likely to play out in the streets more than others.
That is an obvious comment. It continues:
 In a town they are likely thus to be exposed to more lead, particularly through the digestive tract, than children who do not play out. These children could have higher body lead levels, poorer scores on school-related tests and poorer behaviour. Parental attention/neglect could explain all the results presented in both papers.
If that is so, why is a survey being conducted in Birmingham on children in day care centres? The Great Ormond Street report tries to demolish the reports by Needleman and David. It says:
 All are agreed that when children ingest large quantities of lead they suffer serious and


permanent disability. For this reason public health legislation has laid down stringent measures to control the amount of lead in the environment in this country.
The David and Needleman papers raise the question whether regulations should be even tighter because, the authors suggest, children can be harmed by a lower exposure to lead than has been considered significant up to the present time.
Four people from the Great Ormond Street hospital have produced a paper that is addressed to nobody. It does not say who requested that the paper be drawn up. Those involved are Professor Barbara Clayton, who is one of the members of the new working party, Mr. Delves, senior lecturer at the department of chemical pathology, Professor Graham, professor of psychiatry, and Dr. Lansdown, principal psychologist, who is also a member of the new working party. The four tell us that the American papers can be explained in many ways and two of them are to be members of the working party. They do not say who asked them to produce the report.

Mr. Denis Howell: The report is in response to a request by the Department of Health and Social Security.

Mr. Rooker: I understand that the Department of Health and Social Security requested that the report be compiled and published.

Mr. Durant: It is interesting that the paper by Dr. David was addressed to University College, London. In that paper Dr. David talked at length about a drug that he had administered to the children whom he researched, which nullified the effects of lead. I am surprised that the hon. Member should read from the report, of which I have not heard, which seems to knock that research on one side.

Mr. Rooker: The hon. Member is right, particularly since two of the authors of the report are to be members of the working party which is to take an objective look at the matter. My right hon. Friend the Minister has said that the report was produced at the request of the Department of Health and Social Security to be distributed to those who request it. How does anybody know that there is a paper to request unless it has been published?

Mr. Denis Howell: Where did my hon. Friend get it from?

Mr. Rooker: I am about to explain. The four people who made comments at the request of a Government Department did not have the courtesy to inform the two authors of the other papers that they had produced a report. It is normal for academics to provide copies of what they write about colleagues. That did not happen.
That is surprising. I do not know why that was not done. I do not know whether instructions were given. I understand that Great Ormond Street was told that it could distribute the paper to those requesting it. Why was that? I understand that it is the oil companies that are requesting the paper and quoting it in defence of putting lead into petrol. How did the companies know that the paper had been prepared unless they were told by the Department of Health and Social Security or one of the four authors?
It is bad enough that the courtesy was not extended to inform the American authors of the comments made in the paper. My right hon. Friend shakes his head. I must tell him that it is a serious matter in the academic world among serious researchers for that sort of thing to happen. It is not looked upon with ease and kindness by fellow researchers when involved in a problem of medicine involving worldwide interest. They take a pretty dim view of that.
The result is that it makes people such as myself, who see a conspiracy around every corner, ask questions. If the Department asked for the paper to be produced, why did not it make that clear in the document? Why did not it make it clear that the document had been prepared at the request of the DHSS for anyone who asks Great Ormond Street "Have you done anything on lead and its effect on children?" Why was not that done? That is a legitimate question. My right hon. Friend frowns.
The background to the paper is far more significant than anything to do with the Harwell report. It is of the greatest significance because it is being used by the oil companies, organisations that have a direct interest. The four authors—they are bona fide researchers. skilled people at Great Ormond Street, whom I impugn in no way—have been used in a propaganda exercise by a Government Department


and the oil companies. Clearly they have been used. Their work has upset international colleagues because of the discourtesy that has been shown. It has made others suspicious because of the way in which the paper was put out. It was not made clear that it was produced at the behest of the British Government. I am surprised that my right hon. Friend did not place a copy in the Library and let the House know, in answer to a Question, that he had done so, in the same way as with the Warren Spring report.

Mr. Denis Howell: I must say immediately that I take exception to my hon. Friend, whatever he says, whatever conclusions he draws and wherever he obtained his copy of the paper—perhaps we shall be able to deal with that later, as I shall refer to it when I reply—raising a question about the validity of the opinion of four senior consultants and scientists at our most pre-eminent hospital for children, and probably the most preeminent in Europe. They have made their most genuine assessment of two or three pieces of work, an assessment that they were asked to make by the Department of Health and Social Security. I owe it to the consultants and scientists at once to refute any suggestion that in the assessment that they were making they were doing anything other than applying their considerable knowledge and undoubted integrity.

Mr. Rooker: Here we go again. The same old twaddle is trotted out. I am not attacking the integrity of the authors. I am claiming that to protect their integrity someone has to say that they have been used in a public relations exercise. The Government have misused them. I have not done so by making the claims that I have put before the House. The Government are hiding behind a pre-eminent hospital. Of course they approached the most pre-eminent researchers at the most pre-eminent hospital to put their comments on paper. If they are used and it is ensured that the paper is trotted out and made available to anyone who asks for it, surely it should be made clear on the paper that it was put together at the request of the Government. Why was not that done?

Mr. Denis Howell: I am aware that one cannot win with my hon. Friend the

Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker). Had the Government not published the findings of the report, they would have been accused of suppressing vital information. I do not know why this particular paper did not have a particular heading. I shall find out. I suspect that the answer is simple—that the report was addressed to the Secretary of State for Social Services.

Mr. Rooker: If that is the case, the report should not be given out to anyone who asks for it. Any private individual or any oil company can ask the researchers whether they have done any work. Of course the Government cannot win. There is so much here that stinks. Every answer that one gets and every corner that one turns pose even more questions. That is the whole point.
A few days ago the Department of the Environment published the "Digest of Environmental Pollution Statistics ". HMSO, priced £3.25. I do not have a reference number. There was a comment on this document in the New Scientist on 30th November. I shall quote only the last sentence of this short report. Talking about the statistics published by the Government, it says:
 Levels of carbon monoxide, lead, hydrocarbons and oxides of nitrogen from road vehicles rose by nearly 20 per cent. in the case of petrol engines and 10 per cent. in the case of diesel engines between 1970 and 1976.
With a 20 per cent. increase in six years in lead and other things from petrol-driven engines, why on earth are we still waiting?
My right hon. Friend is publishing all the statistics—there is no cover-up there. In fact, no one is saying that there are any cover-ups. We have merely raised a few points tonight, and we shall have to keep raising them on every Consolidated Fund Bill debate until we get some action and until my right hon. Friend can assure us, not in his bland, friendly and sincere way but in some positive way, that at least the citizens of this country deserve from their Government the same protection of environmental health as the citizens of West Germany get from theirs.

1.17 a.m.

Mr. Nigel Spearing: The House has listened to a tour de, force. I do not think that Back Benchers who are apprenhensive about this subject will deny my hon. Friend the Member for


Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) the time that he has taken. Those who have been anxiously waiting for other debates will understand why he had to say all that, when they read his speech. I suspect that the reason why he went into so much fascinating detail was that he knew that unless he did it would not get on the record at all. In this matter, as in so many others, the Government have not been very open. Back Benchers and members of the public, speaking without detailed knowledge, have had to drag out the facts bit by bit and part by part over the past four or five years. That does not really get the debate on this off to a good start.
Public concern has continued for more than seven years. I have a cutting from The Sunday Times dated 5th April, 1971 which said:
 Lead pollution at crisis point.
That was seven years ago. We do not seem to have come much further, although I hope that this debate has advanced the case a good deal.
There is now a campaign against lead in petrol—CALIP. The Yorkshire Post has been following this in detail. I hope that when he replies my right hon. Friend will make observations about the Yorkshire Post articles and say whether he thinks that they are fair and accurate.
This debate has become three times more important in the last month. The Harwell report shows that the problem is three times as great as it was at the time of our previous debates. That, in itself, heightens public concern about the importance of the matter and the degree of frankness that we expect from my right hon. Friend.
Of course, it is true that lead pollution can come from other sources than petrol, but the emotive effect of not really being able to do very much about what we breathe is extraordinarily strong. That is why the Government must now be prepared to be very much more active and perhaps more open about the subject than they have been in the past.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley) a year ago asked the Government what steps they were taking to discuss with the oil-refining companies
 high octane petrol which does not need alkyl lead compounds or additives.
My right hon. Friend the Minister of State, who will be replying to the debate, answered on that occasion. He said:
The oil companies are consulted regularly in the context of the Government's programme for reducing the lead content of petrol, but the long term possibility of totally eliminating lead compounds or other additives has not been the subject of discussions."—[Official Report, 15th December 1977; Vol. 941, c. 372–4.]
That was a year ago almost to the day, and I hope that, if my right hon. Friend has not already done so, he will at least begin to think about this, because it looks as though the evidence may mount up to indicate that some action of this sort will have to be taken.
In the same column of the Official Report my right hon. Friend was asked for particulars about the permitted grammes per litre, and the interesting table shows that the figure of grammes per litre taken overall in the United States was only 0·21, in West Germany 0·15, and in the United Kingdom 0·45, as my hon. Friends have said in the debate.
When my right hon. Friend replies, will he say whether he thinks that the German limit of 0·15 grammes per litre is unnecessarily cautious? What is his view of the German limit? If that is the German limit, why is it not the United Kingdom limit? Where do his advisers differ from the advisers of the West German Government?
I am not one to say that we should harmonise, and still less that we should harmonise by regulations from on high, but if there is a good argument for going along with what another country has done because of the merits of the case, we should do so. If we should not do so, the Government should tell us why. I hope that my right hon. Friend will tell us why tonight. I see that he is not taking a note, so perhaps he has it all worked out.
My hon. Friend the Member for Perry Barr mentioned the tonnages of lead going into the atmosphere. My recollection of the matter is that it is about 10,000 tonnes a year. This means that 50 tonnes a year come on to the borough of Newham, and I suspect that every London borough frets at least that amount. Put in those terms, this is perhaps another angle to the problem.
Is my right hon. Friend able to outline to us any of the Government work that is being done on emission control generally, whether by the Transport and Road Research Laboratory or any other researches which have been commissioned, and not just in respect of lead emission? After all, my right hon. Friend is a Minister of the Department of the Environment. Other countries have stronger and stricter controls, particularly the United States of America, not just on lead emission but on other things, particularly carbon monoxide. I fancy that there will be other problems, which I will not go into now, concerning summer conditions, particularly in London, with invisible gases. It may well be that the Department of the Environment will have to face this. Perhaps the Minister can tell us in outline about the general position on emission control. It might cost something, but I understand that at the moment our petrol is one of the cheapest in Europe, so there would seem to be a little expenditure available there, particularly as just over a year ago the duty did not go up. The Government proposed but the Liberal Party disposed. Perhaps the question of emission will be important, and we may have to incur some expenditure there.
I understand from the correspondence, of which there has been some mention already, that the Government as a whole, under Department of the Environment auspices, are spending about £150,000 on further studies. When he replies, I hope that my right hon. Friend will outline just what those studies are and what their objectives are. They probably include the working party that has already been mentioned, but there may be other things as well.
I have a letter from the Department of Health and Social Security, signed by the Secretary of State himself, to Mr. John Bradbrook, of the Socialist Environment and Resources Association, which is not quite so optimistic as some of the pronouncements of the Department of the Environment. In talking about lead in petrol, the Secretary of State says:
 Secondly, in recent years the controversial suggestion has been made that there may be a relationship between the exposure of young children to amounts of lead below those which have been regarded as toxic and various effects on mental development. This is obviously an extremely important and worrying suggestion. The research undertaken in the past has been

carefully reviewed by British and international groups of experts, whose advice was that the results were not conclusive. They noted that the findings were contradictory, and that faults were to be found in the studies which made it very possible that false conclusions could have been drawn; it is in fact a difficult subject to study.
Recently some further work which tried to overcome the difficulties has been completed, and my advisers will wish to assess the results as soon as they are available. While summaries of the results have already been made public, experience shows that it is essential for the full details of expert scientific work of such difficulty to be assessed by other experts before conclusions are drawn one way or the other. Additional research is being funded by the Government on the significance of exposure to lead in relatively small amounts "—
I do not know whether this was pre- or post-Harwell—
 and on the relative importance of different sources of lead in the environment. Close attention will be paid to the results of all the studies as they become available.
I would have thought that that reply, signed by a member of the Cabinet, was cautious. However, it is certainly a cause for concern, because it really says" Not proven ". I prefer the approach of the DHSS and of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services to some of the things that we have heard in previous debates. I suppose that although they are responsible for health they do not have a vested interest in the economic side. I hope that my right hon. Friend will be interested in what I have read to him, especially if he has not already seen that letter. In fact, it was dated 6th November, so probably it was known what the Harwell report would contain. Perhaps that was responsible for the change in tone.
Can my right hon. Friend tell us whether the assumptions about the amount of lead exhaled have been changed by the Harwell report? I understand that previously there was disagreement about the amount of lead that one both breathed in and breathed out again—in other words, the amount that remained in the body. I understand that there has been a change in the assessment of this amount, since at one time it was thought that only about 15–20 per cent. of lead particles inhaled remained in the body, to be ingested or to remain in the blood, but that now it has been found to be much more. I suspect that that letter was written after the greater amount had been identified.


The Conservation Society report was mentioned by my hon Friend the Member for Perry Barr, but I think it right to quote the first part of its conclusion, because it is a very moderate one, which to some extent echoes the letter from the DHSS. It says:
 We consider that the truth of the foregoing propositions "—
that is, the propositions that the society advanced—
 has been established by the supporting evidence, coupled with the absence of substantial contrary evidence to a degree which justifies immediate legislative action designed to reduce greatly the present public exposure to lead, and in particular the exposure of children and pregnant women. We further take the view that the weight of evidence now so strongly implicates lead as a serious public health hazard at contemporary exposure levels that the onus of proof now lies upon those who wish to continue the present practices rather than upon those who wish them to cease.
That is almost the state of play. It seems an eminently reasonable point of view, which is apparently shared by the Secretary of State for Social Services.
I did not know until tonight that the working party set up by the DHSS is to assess the case made by the Conservation Society. It is a pity that it has been necessary.

Mr. Denis Howell: No.

Mr. Spearing: If the Government were up to this issue, they could have responded. I am not criticising the setting up of the working party, but it suggests that the Department's researches were not as well advanced as those of the Conservation Society.
This has been a long-running saga. My hon. Friend the Member for Perry Barr mentioned his debate of 2nd April 1974. There was also a debate on 4th March 1976, when my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Butler) moved an amendment to an EEC regulation on this matter. I regret that Mr. Deputy Speaker at that time did not grant my request for an extension of the debate to one and a half hours under Standing Order No. 3(1)(b), although five hon. Members were waiting to speak.
We have had longer tonight, and the case is well advanced. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Perry Barr receives answers to the questions that he

asked on 1st August. I have, unhappily, had letters in the last few weeks saying that inadequate answers were given then. This House is the defender of the liberties of the British people against the Executive. Every time a Minister does not reply to a fair question, particularly on the Consolidated Fund Bill, we should sit up and take notice. I hope that replies will be given. The sad history of this affair has shown that the suspicions of hon. Members and the general public have been only too well founded—witness the recent Harwell report.
I end by listing the questions that I have asked. First, does the Minister regard the Yorkshire Post articles, written largely on the investigations of Mr. Roger Ratcliffe, as reasonable? Secondly, why does he regard the West German limit as unrealistically low, and what is the explanation of the differences? Thirdly, is the amount of lead still roughly 10,000 tonnes a year, as it was in 1971? Fourthly, what is the state of general research commissioned by the Department of the Environment into exhaust gas emissions, particularly carbon monoxide and haze? Fifthly, what will the £150,000 be spent on, and what is the extent of the studies? Sixthly, when does the Minister expect the report of the conservation working party to be published?
Finally, why was it necessary for the previous research to be jointly funded by industry? One would have thought that, given the large amount spent on transport research, Government funds alone could have sufficed. Why was joint industrial funding necessary? Perhaps my right hon. Friend will be unable to answer all those points in his reply, but if he cannot I know that he will write to me.
This has been a longer debate than we expected. I do not think that history will show it to have been unnecessary. I hope that points raised will be satisfactorily answered, but given the history of the matter I fear that that will not be so. I am sorry that the Government have appeared slow in the past—it may only be an appearance of slowness. I hope that my right hon. Friend will assure us that the Government will now move a good deal more quickly.

1.36 a.m.

Mr. Edward Lyons: I do not claim to be an expert on this


subject or to be able to emulate the breathless trip round it that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) engaged upon. I have a feeling of unease about the matter, and the more hon. Members who air such feelings the more likely it is that someone in authority will take note of the importance of the subject and do something to clear the air, in more senses than one.
I owe a debt to Roger Ratcliffe, the journalist on the Yorkshire Post, whose articles drew my attention to the problem. People do not always accept what journalists write, and that is correct. Government Departments may be particularly sceptical. But Mr. Ratcliffe has sought to draw together a number of reports that are circulating about the effect of lead in the environment, particularly lead derived from petrol.
It is common ground that one can be poisoned physically by lead. Great damage can be done, in a medical sense, by the inhalation of lead. I was struck by the strong suggestion in that series of articles, in particular relying on the work of Dr. David, in America, that there can be an effect upon people's minds, particularly children's minds, as a result of living in an atmosphere containing too much lead, alleged to derive mainly from petrol.
It is suggested that children, particularly, are likely to be mentally damaged from living close to motorways and fumes emanating from vehicles. The children in our city centres are often deprived children, who do not have the best opportunities in life because they attend schools that have large classes with too few teachers. Often they do not have a good home background. They suffer from many disabilities in comparison with other children.
If it may be true that lead is a silent killer of the minds of children, and if it is right that it will damage their intelligence quotient, so that they will be even less able to compete with others and to enjoy that which intelligence gives the capacity to enjoy in the way of literature, art, music, and so on, it is a very serious allegation to make.
This matter may be fairly new. It is right to treat it initially with suspicion. I am reminded of the work of Swan, the

famous Australian ophthalmologist, who discovered the connection between rubella and malformed births. Rubella is German measles. In 1943, working in an institution in Australia, it suddenly occurred to Swan that many of the deformed children, particularly children with cataracts, who were coming into his institution had all been born at about the same time. He investigated and found that the mothers of these children had had German measles in pregnancy.
That was the first clue. Swan came to the conclusion—he was the first man to do so—that German measles had something to do with malformed children. Because so many children in the institution in which he was working had mothers who had contracted rubella in pregnancy, he immediately concluded that if a woman got rubella in pregnancy her child would, mentally—and perhaps physically—be a dead duck, because there would be brain damage, and so on.
For some years there was scepticism about this. Others were slow to follow Swan's observations. Eventually observations were undertaken in Holland and elsewhere, and over a period of years there was growing support for Swan's theory. Then there was a reaction. Suddenly, others pointed out that there might be hundreds of thousands of mothers who had had rubella in pregnancy but who had given birth to perfectly normal children, and because they had never entered institutions no one had traced back to see whether those mothers had had rubella.
There was a sudden attack based on the suggestion that there was not an 80 per cent chance of giving birth to a deformed child if a woman had rubella in pregnancy. It might be that it was only a 10 per cent. or 20 per cent. chance, or that if a woman got it in the second month of pregnancy she produced a deformed child but if she got it in the fifth month she was free of that risk.
The battle went back wards and forwards. Even in the early 1960s gynae-cologists were in some cases unwilling to accept the results of Swan's work. Now, with more experiments and research, Swan is again accepted. If a woman is unlucky enough to have rubella in the second month of her pregnancy, doctors tend to


be rather depressed about the outlook for the child that she is likely to bear.
I return to the question of lead pollution. It may be a novel suggestion that the inhalation of lead by city children can produce a condition in them that makes them less able to concentrate than other children, that makes them poor at their studies, perhaps, and that is said to make them more violent in disposition, and—although it may sound fanciful—may in the end lead them to be football hooligans or to engage in acts of vandalism. We have not got very far in finding out why children become vandals or football hooligans.
We are offered a theory, allegedly based on observation by professional people, that the effect of lead can result in mental damage and can produce effects on human behaviour which are far from pleasant and, indeed, are very serious for society as well as for the individuals who are caught by the effects of over-inhalation of lead in the atmosphere.
Before dismissing the effects of these investigations and reports, we must see what other countries have made of them. I freely confess that I am no expert, but when I see the action that has been taken in various countries, particularly West Germany, to restrict the amount of lead in petrol, I feel bound to ask what the British Government have made of it. Do they say that the West Germans are wrong? Do they say that the West Germans have over-reacted? Do they say that what the West Germans are doing is totally unnecessary? Those are probably not new questions in this controversy.
If the answer is "We are not sure; we do not know whether these early reports will turn out to be right; we do not want to announce a conclusion when we have not yet compiled enough data ", that is perfectly understandable. It may not please my hon. Friend the Member for Perry Barr and others, who may feel absolutely certain about the matter, but it is a defensible position. If that is the Government's position, they must consider what they will do in the interim before reaching a firm conclusion. I do not blame them if they are unable to reach a firm conclusion yet.
Are the Government to say" We have not yet reached a firm conclusion. We

shall not warn anyone. We shall let matters go on as they are. We shall let the current levels of lead pollution continue, apart from our minor reform scheduled for 1981 "? Or will they say "Until we know definitely that this is not damaging anyone, we shall at least embark on a policy of education "?
I do not think that one person in 10,000 in this country is even aware of the problem. For example, in a snarl-up of traffic, despite the cost of petrol, people keep motor car engines running for 10 minutes or a quarter of an hour at a time, emitting allegedly dangerous fumes when they could switch off for that short time. No doubt they would switch off their engines if they were alert to the problem. The point is that they are not.
A man will get out of a vehicle being driven by his wife and fiddle around in the boot. His wife will be at the wheel, but she probably will not switch off the engine, and all the time that man is fiddling around in the boot he will be inhaling dangerous fumes. That is because he has no idea that he is running any risk. Children will play in the driveway of their home while their parents are sitting in their car running the engine for some reason or other.
Nothing is done, because no one is aware of the possibility of any menace. If the Government feel that there is a reasonable possibility that the reports about which we have heard are true, is it not up to them to go to the Department of Education and Science and say" What about letting teachers know so that they can at least alert children to the danger and they in turn, by their behaviour, can to some extent limit their exposure to petrol fumes?" Of course, if the atmosphere as a whole is being poisoned, no matter how many yards one may stand away from a vehicle emitting fumes one will still inhale too much lead.
What about the education of the public? Does my right hon. Friend think that the Government have a duty to enlighten the public, or is the Government's attitude that such education would give some respectability to the theories advanced by Dr. David and others, and that that might create a panic, the damage of which might outweigh the effects of spreading the word about the allegations concerning lead poisoning?
The burden is on the Government. I hope that my right hon. Friend will tell himself that he does not want to be the Minister about whom people will say, in 10 or 20 years' time, when the facts are fully established, "He did nothing. He was smug. He preferred to wait." If he is sure that the reports are nonsense, he is entitled to say so and we are entitled to listen, but if he believes that they may have substance it is his duty to urge on the Government a course of action pending further investigation.
I represent a city centre constituency—an area in which children play in traffic. Only two or three weeks ago I spoke on the telephone to the man who wrote the reports in the Yorkshire Post. He struck me as a highly sensible and sensitive journalist. I came to the conclusion that I was talking to a very intelligent man who was doing an excellent piece of enlightening and campaigning journalism —a man to whom I should pay some attention. I have since read his reports.
I know that there have been Questions about the subject. It seems to me to deserve public attention. I am grateful to those who sought a debate on the subject, which is a matter of considerable public importance. This seems to me an appropriate occasion on which to raise it.

1.52 a.m.

Mr Tim Sainsbury: I think that this is the fourth time that I have participated in a debate on this subject in the House in the past two and a half years. Not for the first time, we are indebted to the hon. Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Butler) for initiating the debate. I think that this is the longest of the debates on the subject in which I have been involved. I congratulate the hon. Lady on the brevity of her contribution. There were moments when I thought that our progress varied inversely with the length of the contributions.
This is a complex subject on which there are differing expert opinions. All those who have taken part in the debate, as well as other hon. Members who have not spoken and many members of the public, feel genuine concern, but the expression of that concern is not helped by pretending that the issue is clear-cut, by pretending that a particular expert, who may be contradicted by many others, is necessarily right because he happens to hold the point of view that we find

most attractive. We want to keep the matter in perspective, because of its complications, as just one of many important and worrying pollution problems.
Lead pipes and lead cisterns have been mentioned. It is probable that in antipollution programmes for improving health, expenditure on replacing lead pipes and lead cisterns would be more cost-effective than money spent on a further reduction in the lead content of petrol. That is a matter for argument, but we are glad that on occasions even this Government seem to recognise that there is not a bottomless public purse. Therefore, in dealing with pollution, as with other problems, we want to consider how we can have the most cost-effective programmes. I suppose that the most all-pervasive pollutant is noise. That causes more damage to health than lead in petrol.
The hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) spoke about the programme of emission control. It is emissions from power stations, particularly coal-burning stations, that are most worrying. There are three inter-related questions here. The first is whether the level of blood lead is tending to increase. This is made more complex by the difficulties of accurate measurement. The second question is what the effect of a given level of blood lead is likely to be in a given age of person. I understand that tests carried out on policemen who spend a great deal of their working lives trying to sort out traffic jams—some people might think that they actually cause them sometimes, but they certainly sort them out, whether or not they cause them in the first place—have shown that there does not seem to be a worrying level. We have to recognise that there is now enough evidence to give rise to concern with respect to children, particularly those living close to major roads.
The third question, which perhaps gives rise to most controversy, is how does the lead get into the blood? What is the contribution from the atmosphere, from ingestion, and what is the contribution from lead in petrol to lead in the atmosphere? We have heard considerable differences of opinion on those points in the debate. The Minister must recognise that there are genuine grounds for concern on all three counts. The Harwell report, already referred to, is crucial.
My hon. Friend the Member for Reading, North (Mr. Durant) put it well when he said that we do not need any more evidence to tell us that there is a problem. I hope that the Minister agrees that that is a fair summary of the situation. Equally, if we accept that there is cause for concern, we have to recognise that if we are to seek to reduce lead from any source it is likely to be a long-term, expensive programme. We need to plan now for what we may have to do, or find it advisable to do, in the 1980s.
Our debate of 5th April 1976 has been referred to. I noticed, when I was refreshing my memory on that debate, that I asked the Minister of State:
Will the Minister be keeping the question of filter traps under constant review, particularly if it should be found desirable to move to lower figures? "—[Official Report, 5th April, 1976; Vol. 909; c. 191.]
At that time a number of us were anticipating that this position might arise. We are reassured to know that a working party has been set up by the DHSS to assess some of the problems that the Harwell report has identified. I suggest that we should anticipate them now and prepare ourselves for the identification of a positive health gain from lower levels of lead emission from petrol engine exhausts.
If, after the work of the working party or any of the many other experts who have been referred to in the debate, we find it necessary to take further action, we do not want then to have to say that we do not know how best to proceed to achieve the objective that we shall then have.
There are a number of alternatives. The hon. Member for Wood Green referred, I think, to the alternative anti-knock ingredients. Are these satisfactory? Are there disadvantages from the use of those ingredients about which we do not know and which we should investigate before we find ourselves committed to using them?
What are the full consequences of lower lead levels in petrol, including the effects on maintenance costs? It has been suggested that these might be advantageous. If they are, we should know about them, because that could be a good way of offsetting the increased costs of lowering the lead content.
What about filter traps? I am glad to note that the Minister of State said in the speech to which I have already referred, that they could be "of great benefit" if we have to move to levels below 0.40 grammes of lead per litre of petrol.
It seems to me that there could be opportunities here for EEC environmental programmes. There is expensive research to be undertaken. There are a variety of alternatives. Obviously, it would be sensible, in the light of what we were told by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker), for the approach adopted in this country to relate to and be compatible with the approaches of other EEC countries. We find much more now that cars that are sometimes assumed to be British-made are in fact made elsewhere in the Community and, equally cars are being made in this country for marketing elsewhere in the Community.
It seems to me, therefore, that any programmes that we might undertake now to prepare ourselves for a recognition of the need to lower the levels of lead in petrol could best be financed by EEC funds, and such programmes should be started now. It is clear from what has been said in our three hours of debate tonight that we can no longer brush the problem under the carpet. There are genuine concerns and we need to be reassured one way or the other.
It seems quite probable that we shall reach a point at which we can see that there are positive health gains—perhaps limited in terms of the number of people affected or of areas—from lowering the level of lead in the atmosphere and from tackling that, in particular, through the lead in petrol.
We have to make progress, and we must do it publicly. To some extent, I agree with the hon. Member for Perry Barr when he says that we should make sure that research that can make a contribution should be generally known and be open to criticism. If people want to attack it as invalid on any ground, let the research be public so that the attack also can be made publicly, and so that the experts can resume the arguments with which they confuse us.
I hope that the Minister will be able to assure us all that the Government take the problem seriously and will make progress in research not only into the interlocking problems to which I have referred


but into the possible solutions that we may find ourselves having to adopt in the 1980s.

2.5 a.m.

The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Mr. Denis Howell): There are many reasons for welcoming this debate. First, obviously, I welcome the opportunity of replying to it. Secondly, I welcome the opportunity to deal with some of the baser allegations often implicit in comments about our activities and which ought to be dealt with. Therefore, my speech will be longer than I had hoped. Since hon. Members have urged me to be as full and frank as possible, and to range over the whole question of lead pollution, I hope that I shall be excused for the length of my speech.
It would be even longer if I took the invitation of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) to answer the speech that he made the last time this subject was debated as well as the speech that he made this time. I say to all those who have spoken that if, in trying to keep some order in my speech, I do not manage to deal with all the points that they have raised, or if they think they have not received an answer to any of them, if they will write to me I shall do my best to see that they get an answer.
The object of the Government, which is why we welcome the debate, is to have an informed and intelligent discussion of this matter. That is what we want, rather than some of the more irrational comments that we get. The debate has ranged over responsibilities of the Department of Transport and the Department of Health and Social Security. I am aware of how inadequate I am to deal with their sins as well as those of my own Department, but I shall do my best.
My speech will not deal only with the question of lead in petrol, which, I regret to say, has been the main content of almost all the speeches. Most hon. Members confined themselves to it. Some have suggested that that is the only concern that the Government or the nation should be showing on the question of lead pollution. I say at once that if the question of lead in petrol, important as it is, were the only concern that we had about

lead, we would be failing the children and the country as a whole. I hope that I do not make that mistake in this speech.
This problem has produced increasing concern over recent years because of the various reports that have given rise to the debate. There is, for example, the report of the Gravelly Hill working party, published in May. As my hon. Friend generously acknowledged, that working party was set up by me. I say at once that I am hardly likely to run away from or to wish to ignore the consequences of the report of a working party that I myself established. I have no intention of doing so.
Then there was the study of children living near Rochester Way, on the A2 at Greenwich. There was discussion of studies carried out abroad that suggest that quite low levels of lead in children's bodies can lead to learning and behavioural difficulties. Finally, there was discussion of the so-called secret Harwell report about the amount of lead absorbed through breathing air with different amounts of lead in it.
All those recent reports—even those about which one has a certain degree of scepticism—add to the concern. But that is something that should be welcomed. I welcome, therefore, all the criticisms that have been made, even those by my hon. Friend the Member for Perry Barr, who, I may say, is one of the most assiduous Members. One admires the detailed research that he does. I do not always agree with the logic of his conclusion, but the work that he puts in is to be welcomed. I assure him and the House that I welcome all this attention to the subject. It is no part of my duty or desire to escape from the consequences of Government activity or inactivity in this matter.
There have been many misunderstandings and exaggerations, and even, I am sorry to say, mischievous claims. I am therefore glad of this opportunity to try to set the record straight, to try to add some new thinking to the subject and to give the House some new information about the Government's approach to the whole question, which is particularly what was asked for by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons).
I admired the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Butler). She has often been the source of these debates, which I appreciate. She accused the Government of saying that lead is a danger that arises from means other than petrol, as though we were seeking to minimise the danger from petrol. That is not what the Government say. The Government say that the important fact is the sum total of the lead taken in by the body.
My hon. Friend the Member for Perry Barr generously and properly said, when dealing with the Harwell report and its implications, that it has to be read in association with the amount of lead in our blood. Nobody is challenging the figures that come out of the Gravelly Hill and Rochester Way surveys. Therefore, although according to the Harwell report it may seem that the intake of lead in one form is higher than we previously supposed, as nobody is challenging the general level of lead in the blood it is reasonable to assume that we are taking in less lead in other forms than we previously thought we were.
I say with respect to my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South-West (Mrs. Wise) that it is not my habit to issue bland reassuring statements, which is what I think she accused me of doing. What I try to do is to issue factual statements based on the evidence and the information that is made available to me and to present as rationally and as logically as I can the reasonable conclusions that my advisers, my Department and I draw from our assessment of those facts.
I start, therefore, by saying that lead is a problem, and not just in petrol. We are exposed to the intake of lead through food and water as well as through the air. For most people in this country the greatest source of lead is food. Perhaps two-thirds or more of their intake is from food. Because of that, during the four years that the Government have been in office they have made a concerted and co-ordinated effort, involving many Departments, to deal with this problem across the board. That has been the Government's approach and it will remain their approach. We have a continuing concern in this matter, and I hope that when I set out the history of the action

that we have taken in the last four years our record will speak for itself and show our continuing concern for and continuing proposals to deal with this problem.

Mr. Sainsbury: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman does not mean to imply there was no awareness of the problem of lead in food before the Government came to power. I say that because these programmes have been going on for many years under successive Governments.

Mr. Howell: That is so, and at two points in my speech I shall give credit to our predecessors, because, as far as I know, there is no party political difference about the general approach to the dangers of lead.
Throughout our period of office we have brought before the House proposals and regulations to reduce the intake of lead. Further proposals dealing with food and with lead in the workplace were put out for consultation. These are now in the course of preparation and they will, I hope, be presented to the House at an early date.
Let us look at the record of Government action. In 1974—here I agree immediately with the hon. Member for Hove (Mr. Sainsbury)—resulting from work done before we came into office, we took up the matter and published a comprehensive review entitled "Lead in the environment and its significance to man ". It had a foreword by our late colleague, Anthony Crosland, who was Secretary of State for the Environment at the time. That has been, and remains, our guiding principle. Anthony Crosland said:
 Although there is no evidence that present levels of lead in the environment are hazardous to health the Government should as a matter of prudence ensure that these levels do not increase. Indeed the aim must be to reduce levels in those areas and circumstances where people are most exposed to risk.… The Government's objective is to ensure that while the proper use of lead is not unnecessarily curtailed, the health of all sections of the community is not put at risk and that every practicable measure is taken to reduce exposure ".
That has been our policy for four years and remains our policy, and it is against that that our actions should be judged.
If I outline the areas in which we have taken action it may be for the benefit of the House and particularly of my hon.


Friend the Member for Coventry, South-West, who perhaps thought that we had not been taking action. In 1974, we brought to the House regulations dealing with lead in toys—obviously a considerable hazard for children. That was followed in 1975 by regulations made by the Government, subject to the approval of the House, on pottery glazes, an important source of domestic hazards.
Lead in food is much the most important intake, and the first food regulations that I can trace are dated 1961. They restricted lead in most foods to two parts per million. They were amended in 1972, when the level of lead permitted in baby foods was reduced to 0·5 parts per million. Paint is another serious source of danger, and was once a major threat to children. That was next on our list. Manufacturers have exercised voluntary restraint at the Government's level, and paint in domestic use is now virtually lead-free as a result of that co-operation between Government and private industry.
We have heard a great deal about lead in petrol. It has been progressively reduced since 1972, when the upper limit was taken down from 0·84 grammes per litre to the present level of 0·45 grammes per litre. Regulations have also been made this year on the content of lead in cosmetics. That is particularly important as a result of the Gravelly Hill study, where a majority of the children in the inner city part of the study who showed levels of lead in the bloodstream which gave us cause for concern—they have all been investigated—were Asian children.
There is a theory, which we are investigating, that the habits of some Asian families of using cosmetics that contain illegal amounts of lead and which may have been brought into the country or manufactured illegally could provide the answer to that problem. I put it no higher than that.
I must mention another area of activity. It involves sewage sludge being deposited upon agricultural land. Water authorities, which work to my Department's guidelines on the spreading of sludge, have taken action to control that situation. We are not sitting idly by, as my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South-West suggested. We are conducting a programme of continuous activity. I am glad to say that in the seven areas

of activity we have carried the House with us.

Mr. Edward Lyons: Is my right hon. Friend referring to the ointment called Surma, which is popular in Asia and is applied to the eyes as a decoration? Is he aware of the considerable amount of national and regional publicity about the dangers of using that ointment on the faces of children, and that most Asians in Britain no longer use that ointment?

Mr. Howell: That is not the entire story, but I was referring to that ointment. Activity by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection is a result of the Government's interest in the matter and is part of a programme to reduce the dangers from lead.
I turn to the further action that is proposed. I attach great importance to the lead content in food. Further draft regulations will be laid before the House shortly. These will reduce the permitted lead in most foods from two parts per million to one part per million. They will also reduce the permitted level of lead in baby foods from 0·5 parts per million to 0·2 parts per million. That represents a substantial decrease in the risk.
Canning is of importance. One of the reasons why there has been an improvement for children is that most baby foods are now sold not in cans but in jars and packages, whenever possible. But we are still worried that we may be taking more lead into our system than we should, because of the canning of food. We are considering further proposals for canning and we hope to bring those proposals to the House soon.
The Health and Safety Executive issued draft regulations and a code of practice this year to protect people at work and prevent them from carrying lead out of the works on their clothes—that is dangerous to children at home. It is intended that those regulations should be introduced in 1979.
Drinking water has caused anxiety in some areas. Following the report published last year, the Government have in hand a major exercise, on which we have already spent £250,000, to identify areas where the amount of lead in drinking water is too high. Water is already being


created in some area to reduce its capacity to dissolve lead in pipes. If in some areas lead pipes have to be replaced, that will be done whatever the cost. In all that we are doing, the health criterion will transcend all other considerations where we are convinced that it should.
I have mentioned a cosmetic problem. Through local radio publicity and community relations programmes we hope to take even further action.
We have made two statutory reductions in lead content of petrol since 1976. A third will be made to limit the amount of lead to 0·40 grammes per litre on 1st January 1981. It is clear that the health of the nation must be the first priority. We intend that it should be. We are ready to take action if the facts show that it is needed. The object of the programme is to ensure that in spite of increased car use the total emission of lead is contained at the 1971 level, as recommended by the chief medical officer of the Department of Health and Social Security.
I respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Perry Barr. I provide some information that I think the House will find interesting. We have managed to keep the amount of lead emitted to the 1971 level despite increased traffic. In fact, the figures that I have only recently obtained show that we are using a lower tonnage of lead in our petrol. For example, in 1975 the total amount of lead used for that purpose in Britain was 10,600 tons This year we expect it to be 10,000 tons. Although there are more cars on the road, covering a greater mileage, we are now using less lead. As I said, our stated objective is to maintain the 1971 level.
I direct my remarks to health standards. It is well known that concentrations of lead in the blood are the important measure of man's intake of lead. The generally accepted limit is 35 micro-grammes per 100 millilitres of blood. That is the World Health Organisation's limit. My hon. Friend the Member for Perry Barr attached importance to WHO standards, and I entirely agree with him.
I say without complacency that it needs to be emphasised that the average amount of lead in the bloodstream for the general population is 20 microgrammes against the 35 microgrammes of the WHO. In Birmingham the average of a sample of

732 children was 14.6 microgrammes. No school-age child had a level above 35, although 15 out of the 429 pre-school children had levels equal to or over 35. That is, of course, a cause of concern for us all.
I assure the House that every one of the Birmingham findings is being followed up by active studies by the Birmingham working party under the chairmanship of Mr. Archer, the environmental officer who accepted my invitation to chair the original Gravelly Hill study. I am glad to express my appreciation of the work that he has done. He is continuing with the working study concerning inner city children. We wish to follow up nine of the inner city children from the sample of 83, or about 10 per cent.
All these matters will be pursued and we shall try to establish the central problem in the inner city area that causes the difficulty and to identify and isolate the sources of the lead.
I turn to some of the recent studies that have been mentioned by hon. Members tonight—particularly two in the United States and one in West Germany. These studies must be taken seriously. We believe that they are very difficult to assess. not least because only one of them has yet been published in full. The view of the Government's medical advisers and other experts—including the four consultants and scientists from Great Ormond Street hospital, who are people of the highest calibre and integrity—is that the studies are far from conclusive. They say that
 the evidence that they adduce is inadequate to support a contention that low levels of lead have done harm to children in the way claimed.
They may be right or they may be wrong. If they are wrong, it is for other scientists to take it up with them. It is not given to mortal politicians to be able to pronounce on scientific distinctions of research.
The more sweeping claims that have been made about the number of children who should be considered to be already harmed in this country are unscientific and irresponsible. Nevertheless, these studies must be fully examined, and we intend that they should be. This is a very difficult area.
I shall mention one or two of the problems that cause doubt and concern among


our scientific advisers when they are trying to assess the work of other scientific advisers. First, it is very difficult to measure intelligence anyway. I have always been suspicious of people who thought they could decide a child's future by measuring intelligence. When people set out to do this, I approach the results with a degree of healthy scepticism.
Secondly, there are problems in measuring the small differences in body lead, as well as in measuring behavioural patterns. These are not precise sciences. Nobody criticises what these researchers have done on that account only, but one must point out that it causes us to take their work rather seriously and give it concentrated study rather than accept it on its face value, as some of my hon. Friends have tended to do.
It is very difficult to isolate lead as an influence in behavioural patterns from all the other activities in which young people might be involved. Therefore, the Secretary of State for Social Services set up his working party of independent experts to advise urgently on the health effects of environmental lead. This working party will study everything that has been said, including the Conservation Society's memorandum on its case against lead in petrol.
I add a personal word about the Conservation Society's report. I get the impression that people think that we want to run away from it. As a matter of fact, I called the meeting of the Conservation Society and chaired it myself in this House. I saw to it that expert advisers from the DHSS, Department of Transport and my Department were present. I wanted to bring the Society's researchers into a direct relationship with my advisers. That seemed the most responsible thing that I could do. It was not an easy meeting to chair, as can be imagined, having regard to some of the people who turned up, but it was a very good contribution to open government to try to ensure that the people who criticise us and my advisers have at least some opportunity to meet each other.
I draw the attention of the House to an answer given today by my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Security. He has given full answers to a number of questions upon this subject, and if Members

care to study them I think they will find that they merit attention.
I now move on to the individual studies, which have been the subject of so much discussion. I do not want to comment on them at great length because we have had them referred to the Secretary of State's working party, and I certainly do not want to prejudge its conclusion, but I think that each of them merits a few words in order to show the differences involved.
Dr. David, of New York, who was specifically mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green, studied the blood levels of 589 children already attending children's outpatient clinics. They were made up of 42 per cent. American black children, 31 per cent. Puerto Rican children, 25 per cent. from Caribbean or other American countries, and 2 per cent. Caucasian children. It is not immediately obvious to me that that sort of analysis of that sort of grouping of children could be automatically applied to any situation in this country. I do not think that it could be. I will say no more about it than that, but I think the point is self-evident.
Having studied the 589 children, Dr. David tells us that the patients of the clinic came from some of the most impoverished neighbourhoods in New York city. I admire him for addressing himself to the problems of these children, who would obviously be very difficult to assess, in view of their background, apart altogether from the physical difficulties involved.
Dr. Needleman presented his work at a conference held in Toronto in August this year. We have not yet seen a full report of his work, and it is impossible to make a scientific assessment until it has been made fully available for study in this country.

Mr. Rooker: I am reluctant to intervene, because of the time that I took earlier. If it is not available, how does it come about that the DHSS asked the four top people from Great Ormond Street to present comments on the Neeldeman report?

Mr. Howell: That is exactly the point that these experts from Great Ormond Street make—that it is quite impossible properly to evaluate the report until it is


fully available. They were asked to give comments on what is known and what has yet been published of these reports. We have been trying to find copies, but the report has not yet been fully published. That is why I take issue with people from outside this House who urge us to accept the report as being absolutely valid. It may be, but we cannot accept it as valid and do not believe that it should be put forward by scientists in this country as being valid until they, too, have had the opportunity to study the methodology of Needleman.
As far as we can undertand, Needle-man looked at the level of lead in the teeth of the children he examined, and he concluded that "low lead" children did better in IQ tests than "high lead" children. Some people have compared the levels of lead that he found with the tooth-lead levels of Birmingham children, and have claimed to arrive at alarming conclusions, but they overlook the fact that the Birmingham study itself found great differences, depending, for example, on which tooth was measured. I am not an expert on this but I am told that, depending not only on which tooth but, in the case of children, on which part of which tooth is analysed, there are rather different results. Dr. Needleman makes no reference to this factor so far; therefore it is felt that his conclusions are not yet substantiated or convincing.
I now turn to Dr. Winneke, the German scientist. He is a man of very great distinction and we certainly would not wish to cast any doubts upon his work. But he himself describes his work. He matched two small samples, of 26 children in each, and says only that as a result
 this was an exploratory test. It identifies a need "—
of which we are well aware—
 for further research ".
Again, his full report has not yet been published. I therefore do not think that those three pieces of research can be used by objective people in this country to urge that a convincing conclusion has been made out. At any rate, that is not our view.

Mrs. Wise: Can my right hon. Friend tell us why other countries have found it necessary to take action about lead in petrol, in view of the things that he is

saying? Is it possible that they are willing to work on the principle "better safe than sorry" on a matter relating to children's health?

Mr. Howell: I do not believe that other countries took action on lead in petrol because of these three reports, all of which are so recent and two of which have not yet been published. I shall come to the German case in a moment, but I am trying to deal with some of the attacks made against me outside for not attaching sufficient importance to these three pieces of research. I am told by people outside that these three pieces of research are so convincing that we should act on them at once. I am merely giving the House a factual assessment of the character of these three pieces of research, two of which are not yet fully published, which stops us from adopting any such illogical conclusion.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) asked about continuing research. I can tell him briefly that this continues. As he said, on 12th July I announced three further pieces of research, which are being initiated and which are quite outside and in addition to the working party of the DHSS. Two of these pieces of research will be by the Institute of Child Health and the university of Southampton, and are concerned with assessing the degree and association between body levels and behaviour and intelligence in children, which is the crucial area about which we have been talking. The third contract is with Birmingham university and concerns the relationship between blood lead levels and the behavioural measures in children. Part of that study will, where-ever possible, follow up the children involved in the previous study
Further studies are also under way at Harwell, and a substantial research programme is continuing at the Water Research Centre. I hope that that will convince my hon. Friend about the number of research initiatives that are still going on
I want to say a word about the Harwell research, which is an example of our continuing study, because it has now been going on for six years. Two studies of three years each were commissioned by my Department. Again, I do not need to repeat what I said in an intervention


about the international reputation of the scientists involve
A report was published on 13th November. I do not think I need go into the question of secrecy, because there was a genuine misunderstanding. I understand that, being courteous people, whenever Harwell scientists comment on the work of other people around the world they produce a first draft of their report and send it to the people upon whose work they are commenting.

Mr. Rooker: That is a reasonable thing to do.

Mr. Howell: Of course it is a reasonable thing to do. But when scientists know that that is how they generally behave and since they put on the report "Not for publication" because it is not the final draft that will include any of the feed-back, it is not then reasonable to accuse either them or myself of wishing to suppress the report. I am sorry that no one who made that charge has uttered an apology. I know that my hon. Friend accepted that, because he told me so
I had authorised publication of the report before anyone raised the question of secrecy. The hon. Member for Reading, North (Mr. Durant) said that there had been some excitement about an attempt to hush it up. There was no such attempt. If someone had simply asked Harwell or my Department whether it would be published rather than accused us of secrecy, he would have got that answer and there need have been none of this excitement.
The Harwell report is important, because it tells us for the first time that we are probably taking in from the atmosphere between two and three times the amount of lead that had previously been thought. But it must be read in conjunction with the other studies, which show that the average blood levels are 20 microgrammes per 100 millilitres, as against the WHO upper recommended limit of 35. Previously, we had thought that the highest figure would not be more than one-third of the total intake.
The highest levels found were right next to the M4 motorway. It is right that the researchers did their work there because it is the busiest motorway in Europe. The report's further conclusion was:
 For the majority of urban and rural resi-

dents, the contribution of air lead to total lead intake is less than 10 per cent.
Although that bears out the Government's conclusion that we are absorbing 90 per cent. of our lead from food and water, this is still an area of considerable concern and we shall base our future policy on that fact. I say that not because I am complacent about lead in petrol but to ensure that there is some sense of proportion in the public discussion, which the Government welcome.
The cost of reducing the lead content of petrol will never be the first consideration, although it cannot be ignored and would cost about £200 million to our balance of payments. That is one reason why one has to know whether that is a vital cost for the nation or whether there is an alternative.
Lead is added to petrol to raise the octane level, so as to make the petrol suitable for high compression engines, which give the most efficient performance. If the lead is reduced., either the octane level has to be maintained through extra refining or car engines have to be produced to run on lower octane petrol. In either case there will be an energy penalty. Extra refining uses more crude oil, and low compression engines are less efficient and do fewer miles to the gallon. The cost should therefore be of the following kinds, in differing degrees or permutations, depending on whether octane levels are maintained: first, the cost of extra crude oil needed to produce high octane petrol; secondly, the investment costs of refineries to cope with more severe refining; thirdly, the additional consumption of petrol if the quality is reduced: fourthly, the investment and manufacturing costs of production of modified engines.
Claims have been made that the West Germans have reduced their level from 0·40 grammes per litre to 0·15 without incurring extra costs in crude oil. I have seen accounts of the West German experience by an official of the West German Government. Part of our oil industry is associated with companies in Germany. We have been in touch with them in order to discover their experience. They advise the Department of Energy that the Germans appear to have used 3–4 per cent. more crude oil to produce a given quantity of petrol as a result of reducing the lead content.
I also understand that Germany has imported a greater part of the high octane fractions produced from crude oil from refineries in Holland as a means of reducing its own demand for crude oil. This alternative would not be a viable proposition for the whole of Europe, since the supply that would be available from Holland is limited and the market is entirely taken up by the Germans.
If that fact is right—and we see no reason to doubt it—our best estimate is that 3 per cent. more crude oil would be required, and on that basis we estimate that the cost on the balance of payments would be roughly £200 million a year.
I was asked what we intended to do. If we were to move further it might be that to go to the 0·15 level, as the Germans have, would be a mistake. It might be better to plan to remove lead from petrol completely than to try for the German level. We should have to produce different cars rather than invest in refineries, and to produce high octane fuel for existing cars.
Those are some of the options available to us, together with the suggestion of lead filters. If we dropped below the 0.15 German level, which some of my advisers believe to be a more sensible approach, that would be a matter of major consequence, and no one should seek to minimise the consequence for the oil industry, for the motor industry, which would have to manufacture different types of motor cars to run on totally lead-free petrol, and for the motorist.

Mr. Rooker: British Leyland produces engines for motor cars that are exported to America to run on lead-free petrol. What is the problem? I know that they are produced in small numbers, but the technology is there. My right hon. Friend is on the verge of putting out a scare story about massive costs and changes in industry. That is not so. How does my right hon. Friend explain the Ford experience?

Mr. Howell: My hon. Friend has answered his own question. BL produces a small number of cars for the American market. The information that I am giving is based on the assessment of my advisers, who are in touch with the motor industry. They tell me that if we went for totally lead-free petrol it would be a major un-

dertaking, with considerable financial consequences for the motor industry. That is not a scare story, it is fact.
Perhaps we should do that, but we cannot embark upon such programmes without confronting people with the realities. They are that there would have to be a major adjustment in our motor industry and a major increase in costs for motorists. I am sorry to be told by, of all people, my hon. Friend the Member for Perry Barr that in giving this information and trying to contribute to public discussion I am causing a scare. I very much regret that. I am not doing that at all. I am doing what my hon. Friend wants me to do, which is to give the full facts as best I can in order that there can be the fullest possible public discussion. If anything that I have said proves to be inaccurate, no doubt experts more important than I will soon let me know.
You will be glad to know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I am reaching the end of my lengthy reply.

Mr. Deputy Speaker(Sir Myer Galpern): I am very glad to hear that, because I am beginning to suffer a bit from lead poisoning myself !

Mr. Howell: I have admired your fortitude in the Chair tonight, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am very grateful for it. I shall do my best to ease your lot as soon as I can.
I conclude by saying that we attach great importance to all the options that I have just mentioned. I hope that all my hon. Friends will agree that the fact that we are actively considering these options is at least evidence of our concern and determination to face all these problems. We have also set in train a thorough study to cost the principal options involved. I shall list the options again: going down to 0.15; going leadless; going near to leadless; and using lead traps. Detailed work is in hand, in association with the motor industry and the oil industry. I am glad to say that the results of the study will be made known, and it is hoped to have an interim limited set of findings on all these options in the spring of next year. I hope that that will be welcome news to all my hon. Friends who have rightly shown concern.

Mr. Rooker: Well in time for the next debate.

Mr. Howell: Certainly.
I am well aware that I have not been able to deal with all the detailed points. I intend to write to my hon. Friend the Member for Perry Barr about some of the points that he raised in a previous debate about the Good Hope hospital. There are rational explanations which I shall give to him. The only reason why I am not going into more detail now is that I do not want to trespass on the generosity of the House.
I thank all hon. Members who have taken part in the debate, especially my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green, who initiated it. Whatever view we take, all of us have taken part in the process of producing an informed democracy.

COMMUTER RAIL SERVICE (SOUTHERN REGION)

2.57 a.m.

Mr. Peter Temple-Morris: I am very grateful to the House for the opportunity to raise what I consider to be a very important subject. I hope that it will be to the relief of hon. Members when I say that I shall be able to introduce the subject of commuter service disruption on the Southern Region somewhat more succinctly than some of the contributions that we have already had tonight.
I welcome the Under-Secretary's presence. He is here, as ever, alert and ready to deal with every query and demand from the Opposition Benches. I also welcome the presence of many of my hon. Friends. I hope very soon to pass over the increasingly nocturnal mantle to them, because they have severe constituency problems arising out of the situation. It would be even more useful to hear from them, so I shall confine myself to an introduction
I say straight away that the situation is very serious. What I have to say in particular about the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen is not something that at this stage needs in any way to be ASLEF bashing. At the same time, it needs to be practical and some things need to be said, because we are leading up to a serious situation in the new year. The Minister knows as well as my hon. Friends and myself that we could well have a quite unreasonable and utterly unjustified national rail strike on our hands. That is the possibility.

Clearly, it is the duty of us all to do everything possible to avoid that. That is why my hon. Friends and I think it right that this matter should be raised on the Floor of the House of Commons tonight.
We have to deal with the situation on the Southern Region this very day, when, according to the newspapers—which, because of the hour, we have already read—we are threatened with continued disruption. It is worth remarking—I believe that the Secretary of State put it in these words—that this unofficial action is condemned by both sides in the House and by anyone else who has anything to do with British Rail, including, incidentally, Mr Ray Buckton, who is opposed to this action.
It is perhaps somewhat pathetic that when this striking started it was against a non-binding arbitration which, at the start of the disruption, had not even begun to be discussed. That is the situation that we have reached in British Rail in general. I do not put the blame for that situation any more on ASLEF in general than on ASLEF in particular in the Southern Region, because those two matters are linked, however much Mr Ray Buckton may decide to condemn the situation.
We are dealing with the important issue of trade union power, or its abuse. The very future of ASLEF is at stake, as well as the eventual railway union structure, because, if it continues to behave in this way, it will lose the sympathy of its customers. Its future as a declining union, as many of my hon. Friends know, is in part responsible for the situation that we now face.
The future of British Rail and its productivity is also at stake. I hope that the situation will not become as serious as is at present threatened.
Last, but not least, we have the wellbeing of the long-suffering travelling public to consider, and that is what the debate principally must be about.
By way of background I should like to comment on British Rail, its customers, and ASLEF. First, the tragedy is that this situation has arisen at a time when. by common consent, British Rail is doing well. There has been increasing accord between both sides in Committee and on the Floor of the House about the


future of British Rail. We have our differences, not least over accounting procedures, and so on—indeed, British Rail is in that respect trying to meet the opposition—but there is now a reasonable relationship between British Rail, the Government and the Opposition.
British Rail, by the consent of all concerned, is now under the most promising management that it has had for some time. The volume of passenger services is up by 5 per cent. this year and it was up by 5 per cent. last year. Freight services are likely to balance. There has been considerable demanning in recent years—and all credit to British Rail for that, because wages account for 70 per cent. of costs. Having got all that, we are suddenly threatened, at the very moment of breakthrough, with this disruption by ASLEF.
Here I turn from the Southern Region in particular to ASLEF in general. I can say without fear of contradiction that for future demanning of British Rail ASLEF is the prime target to be aimed it. ASLEF knows that as well as anyone else.
In this context, I should like to quote one figure which graphically brings the point home. The 26,000 members of ASLEF—the drivers and former firemen —drive 246 million loaded train miles per year. That equals 41 miles per man-shift, on average. That must be a world low. Here we come to all the progress that has been made by British Rail generally. Its future prosperity depends on something being done about ASLEF in general as well as the Southern Region in particular.
I turn now to commuters and fares. There is tremendous feeling about fares, which have gone up by 145 per cent. since February 1974. That feeling has been recognised officially in the Price Commission's 1977 report. Indeed, we have had this argument out on the Floor of the House at Question Time. The Price Commission, in its 1977 report, stated that British Rail discriminated against South-Eastern commuters on fares.
There is to be a further increase of 10 per cent. in January, on top of the 145 per cent. That will come at the very time of the threatened disruption. The whole matter is combining to make the commuting public angry and fed up and likely

to look for alternative means of transport. If such alternatives are to be usedin extremis, the roads leading to this capital city will become more clogged than they are now.
There is an increasing demand from the commuting public for a refund of fares. At his Department's last Question Time the Secretary of State said that for a whole day's cancellation there would be refunds whatever type of ticket was held, but the position is far from clear. It seems that British Rail is prepared to make a refund if a whole day's services are cancelled, or perhaps those for such part of a day that no journey can be made, for practical purposes. But there seems to be a great grey area in terms of cancellations and running late. A refund is perhaps justified just as much for people going in for their day's work—people who have appointments, and so on, who must use an alternative means of transport if their morning train is not available.
We appreciate the genuine complaints of ASLEF, particularly on the Southern Region. The tragedy is that it spoils its case by the way in which it behaves over the McCarthy report and the present dispute. We know of the mileage bonuses on the Southern Region, the monotony of a shuttle compared with driving or sitting in an elegant high-speed train, roaring across the country and receiving bonuses here and bonuses there, and we can appreciate the frustrations. There is the question of job rostering. One can go so far as to say that the McCarthy recommendations are wrong and to sympathise with ASLEF, but the more it goes on with the present type of action the more it destroys the sympathy not only of the House but particularly of the public, whom in the end it needs on its side.
I said that there is nothing yet to strike about. The cost to British Rail was £250,000 for the first Wednesday of the current series of stoppages. The cost is now approaching or has reached the £1 million mark. I base those figures on what the Secretary of State told the House the last time we dealt with the subject.
British Rail has gone out of its way, ahead of the working party recommendations and decisions in January, to try to show good faith by giving, under the


business performance scheme, £2 a week, backdated to April this year and stretching only to April 1979. That means that the options are open for a January settlement if ASLEF will behave reasonably.
We should urge British Rail to head in the direction of overall productivity discussions. We hope that the business performance scheme contains the seeds of a solution in January, a way forward for the whole of British Rail. Bonuses here and there to different sorts of people invite enmity and dispute.
The McCarthy solution asks for enmity and dispute, although to a certain extent this is poetic. If my memory serves me right, ASLEF had for some time been demanding extra money for men driving or being companions on high-speed trains. That is perhaps one of the reasons why this wrong solution of McCarthy has been arrived at.
For the future there is a need for overall productivity discussions plus an improvement in ASLEF's attitude. It they do not come, British Rail will lose its improved performance at a time when it needs it, and the long-term question of ASLEF as a trade union will come increasingly to the fore in British politics and will be discussed in the House.
The union has its future at stake. This goes well beyond the Southern Region. My only regret is that when there are all the battles between ASLEF and British Rail about its future the main person to suffer is the long-neglected British travelling consumer, and especially the commuter.

3.10 a.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Pattie: The Government statement on the review of the strategic plan for the South-East was published yesterday. In paragraph 72 it has this to say about rail services in the South-East:
 Rail services have an important and continuing part to play in the South-East, especially in conveying people to and from their work. The London commuter services carry about 40 per cent. of those travelling daily to work in central London. These services do not meet their full costs and the Government expect the Railways Board, with the unions, to intensify their efforts to reduce the cost of operating these services and to adjust them to demand. But, even so, running costs are bound to rise because of the need to renew track and rolling stock. The Government accept that there will

have to be continuing financial support for these services but increased fares may also, over the years, have to make a contribution to meeting the increased costs.
Forty per cent. of all of the people working in the nation's capital rely totally on the railway system for getting them to work. Whenever anything happens that disrupts this flow it has a damaging effect on the economic output of the region, as well as being intensely aggravating and inconvenient to those who suffer.
Disruption of the railway services can take many forms. Before I speak of the most recent manifestations, I wish to make brief reference to the introduction of the new timetable on Southern Region in May of last year. The aim of these revised timetables was to change the emphasis of the service in favour of the designated growth areas beyond Woking. This was to be accomplished at the expense of my constituents who begin their journeys at Chertsey, Addlestone, Weybridge and Walton and Hersham stations. Some trains were cancelled altogether. Others, more subtly, had their length reduced from 12 coaches to eight. For a time there was appalling overcrowding and quite unacceptable congestion.
I am glad to be able to tell the House that, following representations by Surrey county council, by representations from residents' associations in Weybridge and Walton and Hersham, and also by myself, the situation has been significantly improved. I thank the officials of Southern Region for their courtesy and understanding. I have no reason to doubt that they, and the vast majority of those working on Southern Region, wish to provide an efficient and prompt railway service for the public. The introduction of the May 1977 timetable proved to be a disruptive factor in itself. This situation has now stabilised and my constituents have settled down as well as they can in overcrowded trains to await the periodic disruption that afflicts them all too often and is the subject of this debate.
Disruption is caused by official, or usually unofficial, union action, by staff shortages causing train cancellations without notice, and by the weather. I shall not dwell on this most favourite of British topics, the weather, except to say that the existence of winter usually seems to come as a complete surprise to British Rail every year. Before the Minister


slides further down on his comfortable Bench in the belief that the various forms of disruption are all matters for British Rail and not the Government, I wish to make it clear that in my opinion the responsibility for the present disruptive activity flows from Government policies and not from the policies of British Rail.
Although I concede that there are keen inter-union rivalries on the railways—and there are many complexities, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Mr. Temple-Morris), who initiated the debate, has pointed out—the present unofficial action is undoubtedly exacerbated by the non-statutory rigidities of the Government's so-called incomes policy. There are further indications that the Government have failed in their duty to the travelling and tax-paying public by not providing for any procedures to ensure that this unofficial action is the will of the majority of the work force. I have received several indications that this majority will has been conspicuously lacking in certain depots, particularly those away from London. It has often taken a visit by the union "heavy mobs" in Waterloo to get the show off the rails.
The result of this has been a series of one-day strikes, causing severe disruption, with no prospect of any improvement in the situation in the coming weeks. Another form of disruption, which grabs fewer headlines, is the almost daily cancellations of trains due to staff shortage. These cancellations are particularly common on Mondays.
In so far as staff shortages are due to abstenteeism, it is obvious that, thanks to the Government's Employment Protection Act, British Rail has no protective sanctions against its work force, and it would seem that something approaching a great train robbery is necessary to invite dismissal.
In so far as staff shortages are due to illness, British Rail obviously has insufficient staff in key grades. It may well be overmanned in some grades but it is deficient in others. The inability to recruit skilled staff is now a chronic national epidemic, which is ludicrous at a time when we have record unemployment. Again, the Government are entirely responsible for creating a situation in which workers are just about as well off not working as they are when at work.
" Closed due to staff shortages "is the common notice, which will be the epitaph for this Government.
I end as I began, with the "Strategic Plan for the South-East." In the section on industry and employment mention is made of regenerating the inner urban areas and creating job opportunities, but there is no word about assisting people to travel to those opportunities, and no imaginative discretionary travel schemes for teenagers, for example. In short, there is nothing to indicate any improvement from a totally unsatisfactory situation in which commuters facing fare increases in January have to live with the consequences of this Government's absurd policies.

3.16 a.m.

Mr. Carol Mather: I shall be brief, since the hour is late and much of the ground has already been adequately covered by my hon. Friends the Members for Leominster (Mr. Temple-Morris) and for Chertsey and Walton (Mr. Pattie).
My constituents in Esher are absolutely fed up with the constant disruption of rail services, the mounting cost of fares, and the withdrawal of such things as cheap rate fares for school leavers. They are fed up with waiting in the cold on draughty station platforms and not knowing whether they will get to work. They are fed up with half-hearted service and the attitude of the railway unions which apparently, from the passengers' point of view, consider that internal warfare is far more important than service to the public.
On 15th November my constituents travelling to Waterloo were virtually cut off by the cancellation of 1,094 trains out of 1,560. On 22nd November severe disruptions were caused after the cancellation of 248 trains, and on 6th December cancellation of 1,560 trains made the journey impossible. Now we hear that the unofficial strike may become official and action will be intensified. So we have a bleak prospect for the new year.
Many people now find that the obstacles to getting to work on a Wednesday are so great that they would rather stay at home. In fact, in the Southern Region area—a very large area—we are rapidly coming to the point at which there is a four-day working week, to the detriment of commerce and industry.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster said, all this is doing exactly the opposite of what everyone wants. It is taking people away from rail and putting them on the roads again.
The inside life of British Rail is completely "Alice in Wonderland"—it would amaze a visitor from Mars—with firemen stoking non-existent fires and drivers driving non-existent trains, with high-speed trains parked for a year in the engine sheds, and strikes about non-existent issues
If British Rail followed EEC drivers' hours for road freight—incidentally, the Government have already said that these are far too restrictive—we could get away with about 12,000 drivers and no firemen instead of 20,000 drivers and 6,000 firemen.
The Minister may think that that is a gross over-simplification of the case. Of course, there are intractable problems—I recognise that—but the Government, in spite of their protestations, have not backed up British Rail management as they should have done. On the contrary, they have undermined management's hard-won negotiating position. The result has been the collapse of the whole pack of cards, and with it the 1974 agreement has come to naught.
Let us face it: at one time the railways were clean, trains were reliable, service was punctilious and stations were immaculate. It is amazing to think that those days existed, but they did. The staff were justly proud that they provided the best railway service in Europe. That is not the case today, and the Minister must take the onus of explaining why.

3.20 a.m.

Mr. F. A. Burden: I am grateful, as I am sure the whole House is, to my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Mr. Temple-Morris) for giving us this opportunity to discuss the situation of our commuters even at this late hour. Indeed, we are grateful to him for the general background that he gave. I am surprised that no Labour Members, apart from the Minister himself, are here when commuters and their problems are being discussed. The Minister looks very lonely. I hope that he will be able to give us a reasonable response to the debate.
I was impressed by my hon. Friend's reference to ASLEF. I am afraid that the ASLEF branch in my constituency is often in the forefront of unofficial strikes. Indeed, very recently, the Secretary of State for Transport named the branch in one of his comments in the House, and I then said that I hoped that British Rail would be encouraged to try to ascertain what it is that motivates men in the worst branches of ASLEF to take the unofficial action that causes so much distress to so many commuters. There must surely be a particular answer. Either there are one or two agitators who are determined to cause as much trouble as possible, or there are real problems that could be sorted out if they were looked into.
The last occasion on which I had an opportunity to speak at any length about commuters from my constituency was on 17th March 1976. Then there were 6,000 people travelling daily between London and Gillingham carrying out their jobs. I have no doubt that about the same number still come to London every day to work, and I should think that a comparable number travel from Chatham to London daily.
I think that it is right to say that very few of the people in that area are in the top bracket of salary earners. They went there because they could find good housing at reasonable prices; they committed themselves to the full at the time, in the late 1960s particularly, in buying their homes, when they had no idea that there would be the inflation from which we have since suffered; and they certainly had no idea of the devastating increases in rail fares that were facing them.
Even when we are discussing the disruption that is taking place on the railways, it is desirable to point out that it is not only the question of lateness of trains, of being unable to get to work because of strikes, that is causing distress; acute distress is caused by the enormous increases in rail fares that have taken place.
In 1972, a season ticket from Rainham to London cost £117. In the debate on 17th March 1976 on the. British Rail commuter services, I pointed out that this cost had risen to £372. That was an increase of £255, and two further increases have taken place more recently. The average increases were 12½ per cent. in January


1977 and 14½ per cent. in January 1978, and we are told that there is to be another 10 per cent. increase next January.
My somewhat rough calculations disclose that the Rainham to London season ticket, costing £372 in March 1976, will cost £527 next January—an increase of £155 in three years, and an increase of £410 since 1972, when the figure was £117. There has been an average yearly increase of £55 in the space of seven years. It is not to be wondered at that commuters are up in arms at the fare increases. It is not surprising that when they are faced with strikes that make it impossible for them to get to work they become disgruntled and, indeed, that in my constituency they are becoming most vociferous in their complaints.
One has to relate those increases to the general increases in the standard of living, and the result has been great financial hardship. People have also, to my certain knowledge, had to put up with gross overcrowding on the trains. Furthermore, on many occasions when I have been present, the trains, both inside and outside, have been what I can only describe as disgustingly dirty. Quite often, too, there is a lack of punctuality and, as my hon. Friends have said, on some occasions there are no trains at all because of unofficial strikes and lack of manning, particularly after weekends.
I have had many calls for help from my constituents, and I was perhaps fortunate in that on 7th September I and some other local people had an opportunity to meet the chairman of British Rail. Sir Peter Parker was very hospitable. We had a pleasant dinner, but the important part of the evening came after that, and discussions went on until nearly midnight.
Sir Peter accepted many of the criticisms that are made by commuters about prices and the conditions of the trains. I got the impression that, certainly with regard to fare increases, he was suffering under Government mandate. I got the impression that he had been told by the Government that there was to be a fares increase of 10 per cent. in real terms over the next three years. If the Government are imposing that mandatory instruction on British Rail they should come out into the open and make

clear that British Rail management is acting under their instructions and is not plucking fares increases out of the air.
During the evening, the problems facing commuters were discussed at considerable length and there was a feeling, if not of despair, certainly that it may be difficult to get the unions to co-operate to the full in bringing about what I am sure Sir Peter wants—a really efficient railway network. I get the impression that the top management of British Rail is better than for a considerable time and shows great promise of strong action.
The conditions of trains were discussed and Sir Peter spelt out the problems clearly. There is great difficulty in recruiting cleaners. People do not want to do that sort of work. It was suggested to him that there have been great advances in automatic cleaning machines which could make the work more acceptable and that such equipment should be used by British Rail. Sir Peter said that he would consider that.
I was impressed by the fact that Sir Peter made no excuses. He admitted that timekeeping was bad and that there was a great deal to do, but said that his aim was to create a fast, safe, punctual railway network which would operate as cheaply as possible. I believe that he is sincere. The commuters in my constituency and I wish him well, but if that aim is to be attained, British Rail will need much help from the Government. Above all, the Government should enable British Rail to be managed by its board. The Government should not act as the nigger in the woodpile by imposing instructions that will frustrate British Rail's management and cause the commuter's lot to be as bad as it is now for many years to come.

3.35 a.m.

Mr. Roger Sims: I welcome the debate both on behalf of my constituents and personally. Only when the House is sitting at the odd hour that it is tonight do I come here by car Normally I use my season ticket and commute. Commuter services are the lifeblood of my constituents. Each day hundreds of my constituents use one of nine stations to travel to town to work.
During the General Election campaign many hon. Members met their constituents outside the factory gates. I meet


my constituents outside the railway stations. For us, the 8.10 train service to town and the 5.54 back in the evening —in my case it is usually the 10.44—are rather like the daily paper. We take it for granted, but we miss it when it is not there.
I do not wish to become involved British Rail business. Southern Region deserves credit for many matters. Anybody visiting the new signal box at London Bridge station is bound to be impressed at its complexity, its built-in safety factors and the skill of its operators. One is bound to sympathise with the difficulties experienced by Southern Region in trying to build London Bridge station when it is in daily use.
Fare prices are to be increased again shortly and passengers are entitled to expect a service that is regular and punctual. They are entitled to travel in decent conditions. But often carriages are filthy, rubbish is on the floor, graffiti is on the walls—usually badly spelt—and the seats are slashed. We cannot hold British Rail responsible for that. Sometimes British Rail has to take coaches out of service because of such conditions. That is one of the causes of the shortage of stock, which leads to the cancellation of services. The passengers are responsible for the vandalism. It is a sad commentary on the state of our community.
However, the passengers cannot be held responsible for the delays and cancellations. It is said that well over 90 per cent. of the trains on the Southern Region are on time, or no more than a few minutes late. But there are far too many cancellations without warning, to no set pattern during the rush hour and at off-peak times. We are given various explanations. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chertsey and Walton (Mr. Pattie) said, one of them is the shortage of staff, despite the level of unemployment. Apparently the shortage is caused by a combination of wage levels and unsocial hours.
We are up against two aspects of Government policy. First, there is a restriction on the wage increases that British Rail can grant. This takes no account of the obvious recruiting difficulties and the fact that this is a vital service, which the public must have.
Secondly, the benefit that an unemployed man receives is such that he considers the little extra that he will receive by working to be not worth the inconvenience of early starts and late nights. I shall not dwell on those aspects of Government policy, but the Minister cannot ignore them. He must accept a degree of Government responsibility.
Another explanation that we are given for the cancellations is what is sometimes euphemistically described as "staff difficulties" or "industrial action ". That is action that you and I, Mr. Deputy Speaker, would normally describe as strikes. Strikes are an inappropriate industrial weapon nowadays. That is especially so when dealing with public services such as the rail service. When industrial action causes a diminution of service it irritates users and disrupts business and domestic arrangements. A complete close-down of a service such as we suffered about three weeks ago causes havoc. The damage done to the nation's economy by so many being unable to get to their jobs in the City and West End must be incalculable, not to mention the hundreds of personal arrangements that are completely wrecked.
Such action has little direct impression on the top brass of British Rail, most of whom probably travel to their offices by car. It does not unduly worry, for example, the managing director of a City company who travels in a chauffeur-driven car. It does not especially upset the local Member of Parliament, who is able on such a day to go to Westminster by car. Of course, he enjoys free parking at his place of work, which is more than most of his constituents enjoy.
The trouble is that those most inconvenienced by disruptions or close-downs are ordinary working people—people with a job to do, like drivers and the guards. It is they who have to suffer the frustration and misery.
On such occasions the staff may have a case. Labour relations in British Rail are not all that they could be. However, far from attracting support, the action in which the staff gets involved merely alienates passengers' sympathy. Commuters rely upon the trains. They use them daily. They pass through two stations at least twice daily. The staff of British Rail has virtually a captive audience.
If the staff has a case to make, it needs no great imagination to think of ways in which it may influence that audience, but disrupting services is not one of them. That helps no one. I urge drivers and guards as powerfully as I can to consider the effect of their action. I urge the Minister to use his good offices to prevent a recurrence of the action that we have seen in recent weeks. Although I refer to "recent weeks ", my correspondence on the topic goes back well over 12 months. We were in exactly the same situation 12 months ago. We were having similar discussions in the House about disruptions of suburban services.
I suggest two small ways in which the Southern Region could alleviate the disruption that we have to tolerate. When trains have to be cancelled, I suggest that Southern Region should adjust some of the other services to help cope with the problem. The other evening at Cannon Street the slow train on my line was cancelled and a fast train on the same line 10 minutes later ran as usual. Why could not the fast train have been cancelled rather than the slow one, so that those using the intervening stations could be served? Alternatively, why could not the fast train have stopped at some of the intermediate stations? That would not have been an especially difficult matter to arrange.
Lastly, if passengers have had to wait a long time on the platform for a train and it finally arrives only to proceed at the pace of a snail, it is the last straw when they reach the London terminus to have to spend many more long minutes shuffling along in a large crowd through a narrow exit. Surely the station manager could use his discretion on such occasions and throw up the ticket barrier.
On paper, the South-East London suburbs have a very good train service. A great deal of work and investment have gone into it. This service provides a vital role in the life of suburbia. When run properly, it is very efficient. All we ask is that it should be allowed to do just that.

3.46 a.m.

Mr. Roger Moate: At the best of times the commuter's lot is not a happy one. From my constituency a commuter spends £50 a month on fares —and that figure will soon go up by 10

per cent. He spends between two and three hours on the train each day, and his working day is more often than not 11 or 12 hours. That is at the best of times, and these are definitely not the best of times for the commuter.
We are now faced with more disruption on the railways. This nearly always happens when the weather is at its worst and people are tired and frustrated. This is a matter for regret, because most of us had welcomed a considerable and evident improvement in the operations and industrial relations of British Rail.
We should emphasise just how serious the disruption of our rail system is. Newspaper reports of this disruption show just how many people are inconvenienced by the industrial action of a small number of drivers. The rest of the country just does not understand the scale of the disruption. A newspaper report of one of the Wednesday strikes was headlined
 Southern strike strands 350,000 people.
That is a lot of people. It went on:
 The strike by 733 ASLEF drivers on Southern Region South-east division, and 96 drivers based at the South-west division's Wimbledon depot hit more than 350,000 commuters.
Just a handful of people can cause massive disruption to the capital, massive economic loss and enormous inconvenience, anger, and frustration to a large number of lives. I quote further:
 Said a Southern Region spokesman: ' It would be wrong to say there was chaos. You can only have chaos when you have people and trains, and today we had neither'.
The chaos is on the roads. When we talk about the disruption caused by actions of this kind, we must understand the effect that it has on the roads. On that same Wednesday a newspaper reported that
 A three-mile jam stretched from the Elephant and Castle to Lewisham 
and that
 At New Cross there was a four-mile tail back to Catford. At the Blackwall Tunnel the queue from the south was three-miles long. Another three mile queue was at the Wandsworth one-way system.
All over the south of London there were tremendous congestion and massive delays. People took hours to get to work, and those who did finally manage it did not know whether they could get back at night.
This is a tragic picture, because it comes when we had hoped that relations were improving between the unions on


the railways and between the unions and management.
The blame for the deterioration must lie to a certain extent with the Government. We are witnessing a whole series of spiteful, petty strikes—the consequences of several years of incomes policy. There have been a compression of differentials and a build-up of problems. We now have a manifestation of all the irritations of all the years of incomes restraint. I do not think that the Minister can stand aside from this and say that it is up to British Rail and its negotiations and that it is not the fault or the responsibility of Government. It is very much the responsibility of Government.
I have some suggestions to make eventually, because what we do not want to contemplate is the probability of unofficial disputes of this kind being constantly presented as the prospect for commuters for the future. We want to get away from this.
It is ironic in some ways that one of the best phrases ever produced in the debate on industrial relations was the phrase "In Place of Strife ". I am sure that it is a phrase that registers with the Minister and is one of which he would have fond memories. It is a very fine phrase because it says exactly what the commuter wants. He wants to replace strife. He wants industrial peace.
It is interesting to look back at the 1969 proposals. I suggest that the Government should look again at the proposals that they then put forward but abandoned so sadly. Those proposals make very interesting reading. They included such things as pre-strike ballots. They included such proposals as ministerial power to impose cooling-off periods, a 28-day pause, in the case of unconstitutional strikes. Ministers would have had the power to go before the industrial board to ask for financial penalties to be imposed upon those who disobeyed orders.
These were not Conservative proposals. They were Labour Government proposals. The then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson) at the time said that the passage of the Bill then was essential for the continuance of that Government in office. But, like the Prime Minister of today, he then had trouble with the national executive com-

mittee of the Labour Party. The then treasurer of the Labour Party helped to destroy In Place of Strike "on the NEC. The then treasurer of the Labour Party is the present Prime Minister, who now has trouble with his NEC.

Mr. Mather: Can my hon. Friend explain how it was, in the event, that these proposals never came into effect?

Mr. Moate: I think that the secret lies in the point that I was just making, that essentially the present Prime Minister vetoed them. That the the said truth. Were it not for that, perhaps we could have had some hope that today even this Government might be introducing proposals on the lines of those produced in 1969. We might have been thinking now of proposals such as secret ballots, cooling-off periods and other similar proposals which could prevent many of these very foolish and unnecessary strikes.

Mr. Burden: Does my hon. Friend agree that the present Prime Minister has strife in place of peace on his own Benches?

Mr. Moate: He certainly has. It is a fair point that the sort of strife that we are talking about, very sadly, on the railways is being repeated on an increasing scale in other areas of our national life. We see it in the hospitals, we see it with the bread strikes, and we see it with the newspapers. The Government have a heavy responsibility for the very dramatic deterioration in industrial relations at the present time.
This brings us very much to the question of what the Minister and the Government should now be doing about these disputes on the railways. One recognises, of course, that British Rail management must be allowed to manage. One recognises that Ministers will always be reluctant to get involved in disputes of this kind. But these disputes arise directly from the Government's pay policy, and Ministers cannot stand idly by while the commuters suffer on the scale that they are suffering at the present time. Week after week after week, hundreds of thousands of people are suffering from this type of disruption.
The Secretary of State for Transport has a direct responsibility to take steps to try to improve industrial relations on


British Rail. It is not enough for him to be neutral. We want some positive leadership. We are all of us—I am sure that the Under-Secretary appreciates this —very much committed to trying to secure a modern, efficient, peaceful and successful British Rail. At present that prospect is being undermined by disruption of this kind. A more successful railway system will be secured only by positive leadership from the Minister. It cannot simply be left and brushed aside as it is at the present time.
The commuter feels frustrated. He feels that no one is speaking on his behalf. I am glad that my hon. Friend initiated this debate so that tonight, at least on the Conservative Benches, there are those who are speaking up for the commuter. For the record, I think that we should emphasise that not one Labour Member from the South has stayed to take part in the debate. That is a matter of regret.
At least we are speaking up for the commuter. The Government must do so as well. Commuting up to London is a frustrating, long, tiring, tedious, expensive business. The commuter is entitled to a better service, and I hope that the Minister will give some hope of a better railway service in the future.

3.56 a.m.

Mr. Norman Fowler: This has been a short but important debate. First, I should like to congratulate my hon Friend the Member for Leominster (Mr. Temple-Morris) on raising the subject and for the way in which he did it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden) mentioned, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate), that it is quite extraordinary that six speeches have been made by Conservative Members on the plight of the commuter, but no speeches at all have come from the Labour Back Benches. This is a sad omission, because I believe that this is an important subject.
No aspect of railway policy should give this House more concern than a failure of service which affects the passengers. Yet this is exactly what has happened in this case. Over the past weeks, strike action, which no hon. Member has even attempted to justify, has affected the lives

of tens of thousands of commuters on the Southern Region.
We should remind ourselves what this kind of action is all about and what the effect of it is. Here I underline the points which have been made by my hon. Friends the Members for Esher (Mr. Mather) and Chislehurst (Mr. Sims). On the day on which the Opposition asked a Private Notice Question on this dispute, the Evening News carried a report of the dispute that day. As my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham mentioned, the chief effects of the dispute on that day were the cancellation of 200 trains, and on the roads 45,000 more vehicles than usual were estimated to be coming into London. Buses were delayed by the congestion, and hundreds of thousands of people were late for work. Scotland Yard said:
 It is complete chaos. The whole of South London is one huge traffic jam, and it is getting worse all the time",
Southern Region said:
 It is impossible to say how many trains will run yet. There is no guarantee that we will get people home tonight ".
That is the reality of the dispute about which we are talking. I pay tribute to the Evening News and, indeed, to the Evening Standard for the way in which they have championed the cause of the commuter. In this and their other reports, they have performed a valuable public service. Of course, the fact is that that happened two weeks ago and the disputes have continued. Today we read in the morning newspapers:
Thousands of Southern Region travellers face disruption today as militant drivers operating the Inter-City Bournemouth-Basingstoke-Southampton link to Waterloo stage an unofficial 24-hour strike.
So the action still continues.
Therefore, I approach this question first and foremost from the point of view of the commuter, because it seems to me that in this debate the interests of the commuter are paramount. Over the last four years commuters' fares have more than doubled. In some cases they have gone up by almost 150 per cent. Another increase is due in the new year. Fares have never risen as fast as they have in the past four years. London commuters now pay £500, £600 or more to travel to work. Other prices have risen, but the commuter has been hit twice—by inflation generally, and by unprecedented


fare increases. The result is hardship for thousands of families in the Home Counties.
Now unofficial action is making it impossible for them to travel at all on the services for which they pay as passengers and taxpayers. The most deplorable thing is that commuters have been made the target of the dispute. Mr. Neil Milligan, ASLEF's London and Southern Region organiser, was quoted in the Daily Mail earlier this month as saying:
 We have chosen a prime commuter target for this action.
There is no word of apology for the chaos and the extra pressure on other services, especially the police: just an uncompromising attack on the passenger. In the face of this unthinking and uncaring attitude, it is no wonder commuters become angry as well as frustrated.
This kind of action affects the reputation of British Rail; a minority undoes the good work of the majority. I do not believe that the majority of railwaymen like this action any more than the rest of us, but they probably feel the consequences more directly. The strike is probably not the will of the majority. Industrial relations reform, such as the secret ballot, might help. The Government surely cannot contemplate this and similar problems continuing until the next General Election.
The dispute is doubly tragic since it comes at a time when Sir Peter Parker is making great efforts to improve the services and financial record of British Rail, for which he has been rightly praised on both sides of the House. The two sides of the House are closer on railway policy now than they have been for some time. Such unofficial action affects services and loses the railways money. Its consequences are beyond question. So what can the Government do? This is primarily a matter for the British Railways Board. A working party comprising the board and the unions has been set up. Its report should be ready early in the new year. We hope that it will succeed, but we deplore the taking of industrial action while the working party is trying to bring some sense to the problem.
We face the risk that the action will continue, however, and that it will become worse after Christmas. Whether that happens or whether the one-day strikes con-

tinue, the Government should consider their contingency plans. I would welcome a Government assurance that all possible action will be taken to enable the public to get to work in London if the action continues. That would include lifting regulations on coach services and the cancellation of parking restrictions. We want to hear that the Government have all that in mind.
We hope that this unofficial action will cease quickly. It is not in the interests of the travelling public, British Rail or, ultimately, those taking the action. Its only consequence can be to force passengers off the railways and to force firms to look for locations which are not so dependent upon rail travel. Surely that is not what ASLEF members want. Above all, we hope that the men involved will recognise the interests of the passengers and their right to good, reliable services. That right has been challenged and denied. The commuters deserve better. They are not, and should not be treated as, a target for industrial action.

4.8 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. John Horam): The hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Temple-Morris) has raised a matter of great concern to those who use the Southern Region services of British Railways and, I am sure, to those who hope for a stable and prosperous future for the railways. I reiterate that the Government deplore the disruption caused to Southern Region services on two occasions in November and, so far, once this month by certain ASLEF members who have taken unofficial action unsupported by the executive committee of their union.
As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State told the House on 22nd November, the action is wholly unjustified, unfair to other railwaymen, damaging to the long term prospects of the railways and inexcusable in the inconvenience caused to the travelling public. I accept that a large number of people are affected. The inconvenience extends not only to those who are unable to travel by rail but to those who face the resulting chaos on the roads.
I think that it would be helpful to the House, particularly in view of the wild allegations that have been made, if I were to try to place this dispute in its


context without going too far back into the history of railways disputes or ASLEF's particular issues.
In February of this year there was a dispute over payment of bonuses to certain guards employed on pay-trains, and ASLEF claimed that a bonus should be paid to all footplatemen. That claim was eventually referred to the railway staff national tribunal. This is the sole origin of this industrial action. The hon. Member for Chertsey and Walton (Mr. Pattie) made a connection between Government pay policy and this dispute, but there is no connection whatsoever. On any objective analysis, it is absurd to say that this dispute was caused other than by the reason which I have just outlined—the payment of bonuses to certain guards. That was the immediate origin of this dispute.
Also, in the spring, British Rail offered a general productivity scheme to the railway unions which ASLEF rejected. That issue, too, was referred to the national tribunal. The tribunal produced two reports at the end of October. One dealt with the drivers' claim and the other dealt with the general question of the productivity scheme. It is with the first report, dealing with the drivers' claim, that we are concerned tonight. The tribunal recommended that a responsibility bonus should be paid to those drivers involved in driving trains at speeds above 100 m.p.h. It rejected the claim for any bonus for any other drivers.
The tribunal is the top adjudicating body in the machinery of railway negotiation. Its report was made to the British Railways Board and to the three unions, and its findings provide the basis for further discussion between them. The Board and the unions have already met and agreed that further work needs to be done in relation to the tribunal report. The hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Fowler) referred to that. They have, therefore, formed a footplate joint working party to examine the agreements and working practices relating to footplate staff to see whether their productivity and effectiveness can be increased and consequently rewarded.
The working party will report back to the railway staff national council, and the aim of all parties is to use their best

endeavours—a traditional diplomatic phrase which I hope has some real meaning in this context—to produce a report by 7th January.
I know that I shall have the sympathy of the House in expressing the hope that a satisfactory solution will be found in that time and that while this important and urgent work is going on there will be no further disruption caused by unofficial action. Certainly one would particularly deplore any worsening in the scale of industrial action, to which the hon. Member referred as being a possibility. I am not able to comment on that. I am not privy to any plans of unofficial action. None the less, one would deplore that.
It is, therefore, a particular pity that there is to be further disruption, I understand, today, although I again understand that this is principally centred on the Bournemouth depot and will therefore affect trains in the area of Bournemouth, Weymouth and so on, and not those in other areas. I hope that it can be confined to that.
It has been implied in some quarters that the disruptions on Southern Region show that the procedures for dealing with disputes are no longer adequate. I do not accept that criticism. The railways have long-established and clearly defined machinery. That machinery is being properly used. The top negotiating body of the railway unions, the railway staff national council, is actively involved in seeking a solution to the present difficulties.
Obviously my right hon. Friend and I are watching closely how matters develop. However, I must make it clear that in the first instance the responsibility for finding a solution rests with the Railways Board. I think that this is conceded by hon. Members. We are faced with a difficult industrial relations problem where unofficial action is being taken by a very small group of drivers against the advice of their union. My right hon. Friend has already told the House that he will intervene if he judges that that would improve the situation or settle the dispute. We must hope that the discussions now taking place, which are scheduled to finish by 7th January, will bring about a solution to the problem.
The hon. Member for Leominster fairly dealt with the point that regular users of the railway are, in effect, being deprived of some of the value of their season tickets if there are no trains on particular services on particular days. The hon. Gentleman quoted what my right hon. Friend said in answer to the Private Notice Question put down by the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield on 22nd November, namely, that British Rail would make pro rata refunds on weekly season tickets and would extend the validity of longer-term season tickets.
I accept that it is not entirely clear from that in what circumstances that rule would apply. I should imagine that it applies simply to those who would face a total shutdown for one or more particular days—that is, when there are no trains on a particular service during the morning or evening peaks. I should like to check that matter to see whether I can clarify the details any further and will write to the hon. Gentleman about it.
The hon. Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden) told us about the dinner that he had with Sir Peter Parker and their general conversation relating to his and Sir Peter's feelings about the adequacy or otherwise of services. The hon. Gentleman said that he got the impression that there were specific Government instructions to the British Railways Board to increase fares. I can disabuse the hon. Gentleman of that idea. There have been and are no specific instructions to that effect. The hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members who regularly attend transport debates will be aware that our policy has been to try to spread out inevitable rail fare increases at reasonable intervals and to keep them as moderate as possible. The 9 per cent. or thereabouts increase next January will be the lowest for many years, and it is not too far out of line with the general rate of inflation.

Mr. Burden: Can the hon. Gentleman give me a specific undertaking that no pressure has been exerted upon the chairman of British Rail or on the British Railways Board to increase fares by 10 per cent. in real terms over the next two or three years?

Mr. Horam: I can give the hon. Gentleman that specific undertaking. No such pressure has been applied.
The hon. Members for Esher (Mr. Mather) and Gillingham and others painted a fairly black picture of British Rail's recent performance. They said that the 1974 agreement had come to nothing, that the service was pretty rotten compared with previous years—I do not know what previous period hon. Gentlemen were comparing—and that, as the Government had not backed British Rail's management, they should therefore accept some of the blame for the situation.
I do not know what the problems are on the services referred to by those hon. Gentlemen, but I should contrast them with what was said by the hon. Members for Sutton Coldfield, Leominster and Faversham (Mr. Moate). Those hon. Gentlemen said that British Rail was doing well. Indeed, the hon. Member for Faversham said that there had been an improvement in British Rail's operations. Given the acknowledged problems in London and the South-East, I think that that is generally true. The present situation is all the more sad because, in the eyes of commuters, it is clearly a setback to the real progress which has been made in the past few years. I very much hope that we can find a rapid solution in the context of the talks which are now going on so that that progress can be resumed.

EMPLOYMENT (KILMARNOCK)

4.19 a.m.

Mr. William Ross: I make no apology for troubling the House at this hour of the morning, because I am concerned, as are all those in my constituency, about the serious employment position in the Kilmarnock area.
Kilmarnock is—I stress" is "—the industrial heart of the Ayrshire area. It always has been, and to my mind it will get over the present difficulties and remain so. But we must face the dismal fact that in the past five years unemployment has nearly doubled and has now reached 9·5 per cent.
Like other industrial areas, Kilmarnock has been hit by the economic recession. We have seen a decline in manufacturing industry, particularly in mechanical engineering, brickworks, cotton and other textiles, including carpets. In addition to


what has affected other areas, we have suffered one considerable blow in recent years. Only about a year ago I troubled the House with the problems over the activities of an American firm that had taken over Glenfield Kennedy, one of the oldest hydraulic engineering firms in the country, which had been in existence for over 120 years. Within a decade of the takeover the holding company made that long-established company bankrupt, with the loss of nearly 1,000 jobs.
With the help of the Scottish Office and others we were able to recover some ground. Neptune Glenfield, of the United States, has come in and has done a first-class job. There has been a build-up of labour, and by all accounts the firm has been doing very well. That confirms the statement we made about the quality of labour in Kilmarnock.
My present concern is the latest threatened blow. All in Kilmarnock, including the district and regional council and the chamber of commerce, are concerned to do what they can to ensure that this blow does not fall. The threat is to Massey-Ferguson, which is well known worldwide. The company came to Kilmarnock in 1949, about three years after I became a Member. I remember the day it came in. It was welcomed. After all, Kilmarnock is the centre of a prosperous agricultural area, and it seemed fitting that a firm making agricultural machinery should come there.
The firm built up its business, and in the mid-1960s decided to concentrate combine harvester manufacture in Kilmarnock. The factory is virtually single-purpose; 80 per cent. of the production is combine harvesters. It is the site of the only remaining combine harvester production in the whole of the United Kingdom, so the matter is important from a national point of view. By the late 1960s employment had risen to about 2,000. The firm has naturally been hit by the more recent economic blizzards, and the number employed now is about 1,500.
The only other place where Massey-Ferguson makes combine harvesters is in Marquette, near Lille in France, where combine harvester production accounts for about 29 per cent. of the work. Workers there, too, have been on short time. I do not believe that the troubles of Massey-

Ferguson stem from its agricultural machinery work. Such production is sensitive to changes in climate. Last year the drought in Australasia affected it. There are other, economic, difficulties in other parts of the world which affect production. I am sure that Massey-Ferguson expects that unsettled conditions will become smoother and combine harvester production will increase.
When I hear it suggested that all the firm's troubles stem from Kilmarnock, I think that someone is trying to hoodwink someone. Kilmarnock's record for quality, efficiency and profitability as compared with that of Marquette is very much better. For some other reason this firm decided to hold a feasibility study. I received a letter from the local manager on 8th November which said:
 As you will no doubt recall, in September of this year our parent company in Toronto announced that as part of the programme to restore Massey-Ferguson to profitability, there was to be a world-wide study of the utilisation of our manufacturing resources.
Earlier, in September, I had received Massey-Ferguson's financial report for the nine months ended 31st July, in which these words appear:
 The company is currently studying its world-wide manufacturing facilities, and although this study is not yet complete ".
That was what it was telling the shareholders. In the meantime, it was telling me and the workers that it was just about to embark on the study. I am not a suspicious-minded man, but when we were told that the study was to last three months and then, suddenly, after two months, the company produced the results of that study, affecting Kilmarnock and Marquette, I naturally ask one or two questions.
I received another letter from the company saying:
 I am now pleased to be able to inform you that our study group has made recommendations ".
These recommendations meant the loss of 1,100 jobs in Kilmarnock, taking combine harvester production from a plant which, with the experience of all these years, has been built up to a high level of efficiency, exporting to about 60 countries. The production was to be transferred to Marquette.
It is not the first time that Massey-Ferguson has made mistakes in its calculations and forecasts. It was said in its financial report to have lost $ 145 million in the first nine months of the year. It is worth seeing where it lost that sum. We discover that in the consolidated statement of income there is an item called
 Provision for unusual items—$64,56l million.
That has nothing to do with tractors or with combines. It is related to the construction machinery business.
As for the other escalation of costs, marketing, general and administrative costs went up by about $34 million. Interest on long-term debt and other interest, net— which are not unrelated to the disasters on the construction machinery—show a total of about $120 million. I think that it would be worth the company's while to hesitate and look elsewhere for the sources of its real troubles instead of visiting the iniquities of someone else on the people of Kilmarnock.
In 30 years, I must confess, Massey-Ferguson has played a great part in building up the prosperity of Kilmarnock; there is no doubt about that. But Kilmarnock has been good to Massey-Ferguson. Its factory there was built for the company by Scottish Industrial Estates and has been expanded by the Scottish Development Agency. It has had the benefit of grants, subsidies and REP. It would be interesting to calculate from the Government point of view how much has been given to this company.
I was very surprised that on its feasibility study the company did not actively seek the participation of the trade unions or of anyone else but then faced the trade unions with the decision to transfer to Marquette and to put 1,100 jobs in jeopardy.
As I see it, the trouble goes deeper. It is worth quoting from the final paragraph of the letter to which I have already referred:
 At this stage, the group's recommendations are the subject of discussion and consultation with the unions and must be viewed in that perspective.
I sincerely hope that discussions will not take place just with the unions. There is a role for the Government here. The

Government must not stand idly by and let this sort of thing happen. They should be telling Massey-Ferguson one or two things.
The United Kingdom is Massey-Ferguson's biggest market for its agricultural machinery and combines outside the United States. Again, I am indebted to the company for the figures. In fact, according to the figures here in the document, the market in the United Kingdom over the past nine months has been nearly double that of France. In these nine months the company's sales went up by 30 per cent. in the United Kingdom. They went down in France.
I regard that as a consideration which Massey-Ferguson should bear in mind, and I hope that the Government will tell the company that we cannot stand idly by and see a development area being robbed of 1,100 jobs, those jobs then going to a part of the Common Market which is not an assisted area.
Have the Government made any inquiries of the Regional Commissioner of the EEC about how this fits in with EEC policy? I remember being told of the great benefits which would come from membership of the EEC. I was even told by some people in Massey-Ferguson that I was most misguided in opposing our entry. It seems that here is one of the benefits. In the case of every item made by Massey-Ferguson in Kilmarnock, 60 per cent. of production was exported and the other 40 per cent. went to the home market. That will no longer be available in Britain and will have to be imported, and someone else will get the benefit of the 60 per cent. export trade. That must mean a loss of £20 million or £30 million to our balance of payments.
This is the state that the Government have got into. As a country which is so proud of her intensive agriculture—the figures given by Massey-Ferguson show the extent of the market—we cannot allow in future our combine harvesters which were provided by Kilmarnock to be imported from Marquette. But there is nothing to stop that happening. Yet there is also nothing to stop Massey-Ferguson from concentrating in Kilmarnock and exporting to Marquette, where only 29 per cent. of production is dependent on these considerations.
I sincerely hope that this is the kind of thing that the Government will tell Massey-Ferguson. If a company thinks that it can simply move its production from one country to another, it cannot avoid the consequences. At present, in Coventry, Manchester and Peterborough, where the engines are made for the combines, the workers are very much concerned. There is nothing more destructive of confidence and industrial relations and co-operation than this kind of thing being done without consultation.
I spent many months, starting last June, discussing with the trade unions their concern over the redundancies projected for October. Eventually, there was a meeting between the Government, Massey-Ferguson and the unions. Not once was it suggested that such drastic action would be taken at Kilmarnock. There has been a lack of frankness, and that, too, is disturbing.
I want the Government to face the situation. The factory belongs to the Scottish Development Agency. It is about 800,000 sq. ft., and the company proposes to cut the manpower by two-thirds and employ only 500 instead of 1,500. Indeed, the conditions it lays down cut across many of the things that the unions have battled for and won in the past 20 years. Instead Massey-Ferguson wants a factory of 400,000 sq. ft. employing 500 men. I do not know what the SDA has to say about this. It is a fine factory—some work was done on it not so long ago. There is office accommodation as well as factory space. As I have said, the factory belongs to the SDA, and I believe that there is a contract in respect of it, renewable in 1983.
I hope that the Government will not just sit on the sidelines. The cause that the unions are fighting, along with the district council, which is Tory-controlled, and the regional authorities, is really the nation's cause. It is not just a question of what we will lose on the balance of payments. I think that what the Government will have to spend on unemployment benefit, in their share of redundancy payments and in the loss of taxation means that they will lose more than Massey-Ferguson.
But the company can visit all this on the Government without even telling them

until two days in advance of telling the workers. Have the Government accepted the Massey-Ferguson figures? Will Ministers, not only from the Scottish Office but from the Department of Industry, confornt Massey-Ferguson with the gravity of what it is doing? Do the Government accept that this country should lose its only factory manufacturing combines?
I am sure that the Government are as concerned as I am about this matter, but concern is not enough. We want a promise from the Government that they will do everything they can to make Massey-Ferguson change its mind. They should remind the company that it has been wrong in its calculations in the past and that perhaps it is wrong in its calculations now.
I appreciate what the Scottish Office has done. Kilmarnock draws its labour from a radius of 15 to 20 miles, but many Kilmarnock people go out those distances to jobs that have been safeguarded in Troon by British Shipbuilders. I have already paid tribute to my right hon. Friend for what he did there. The jobs that have been safeguarded and the jobs that are coming at British Aerospace at Prestwick are indications that not all the news is bad, but from a purely Kilmarnock point of view this is the worst shadow over us.
About 60 per cent. of the people employed by Massey-Ferguson—just over 1,000 people—come from the Kilmarnock and Irvine valley areas. About 300 people come from an area where unemployment is even higher than it is in Kilmarnock, and that is the Irvine-Ardrossan area, and another 200 or so come from Troon, Prestwick, Ayr and surrounding areas.
It will be seen that a wide area is affected by this problem, and I hope that I have been able to impress upon my right hon. Friend the importance of this matter not just to Kilmarnock but to a very much wider area and to the nation because of the contribution that Massey-Ferguson, Kilmarnock has made in supplying the home market and exporting to help the balance of payments.

4.42 a.m.

The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Mr Gregor MacKenzie): I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) for the kind way


in which he commented upon what the Scottish economic planning department has done about employment in his constituency and, indeed, in Ayrshire generally. I think he knows that I am concerned about employment in Kilmarnock where, as he said, the level of unemployment is about 9 per cent., which is well above the Scottish average, and which I am sure he finds as totally unacceptable as I do. I think he knows, too, that we have had a number of difficult industrial cases in the Ayrshire area, and I can give him my assurance that we shall do what we can to ensure that these companies are made viable and that there are reasonable levels of employment in them.
I think that it is fair to comment, as I know my right hon. Friend has done over the past few weeks, on the unemployment problem in general. It is a massive problem in Scotland and it is one that we share with the rest of the United Kingdom, and, indeed, with many other industrial countries. Nevertheless, some satisfaction is to be gained from the fact that unemployment in Scotland has fallen by several thousands over the past year and, as my right hon. Friend knows, in the Kilmarnock and Newmilns area it has dropped by several hundreds. At the same time, there are about 321 notified vacancies. That is more than double the figure a year ago. During the past six months we have been notified of only about 70 redundancies.
I note the real concern of my right hon. Friend not just about the subject that he has raised tonight but about redundancies that have occurred during the past few years in engineering, in the carpet industry and in textiles. The news that we received from Massey-Ferguson a few weeks ago came as a major blow to my right ron. Friend and those of us who are concerned about employment in this area. I think that we were all impressed —I see the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Taylor) here, and I am sure that he was as impressed as I was—when a few weeks ago the workers, representatives from the district council and all kinds of representatives from the Kilmarnock area came down and discussed with us in a most responsible manner their genuine concern about what was happening.
My right hon. Friend knows that the Secretary of State and I share his concern about the plans of Massey-Ferguson. It is a good plant, as those of us who know it can testify, and I take my right hon. Friend's point that it is unique in this country and, as a unique operation, is worthy of preservation. By its exports it helps our balance of payments, and it is exceptionally important to the area in terms of jobs. As soon as the announcement was made, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State indicated in a press statement his worry about the situation and his concern to do all he could about it.
We are having discussions with the trade unions and others and we look forward to receiving their proposals. We have indicated to all concerned that the Secretary of State is prepared to look at any plan that will make this a viable project and provide long-term jobs. Our track record in trying to save such jobs will be continued. I assure my right hon. Friend that the Government will not be sitting on the sidelines in this matter, because the loss of 1,000 jobs and the great opportunities for that sort of industry in Scotland will ensure that we bear in mind what my right hon. Friend said and do what we can to help.
This is a debate about employment in the whole area, and my right hon. Friend has expressed concern particularly about unemployment among young people. The job creation workshop at Kilmaurs is to be converted to a youth opportunities programme in mid-December when it will be divided into two training workshops. One workshop at Kilmaurs will provide places for 35 young people and eight supervisors to do knitwear, sewing and catering. The other will be in Kilmarnock and will provide places for 30 young people and seven supervisors to do engineering, metalwork and woodwork. Discussions are in progress with the Kilmarnock and Loudon district council, representatives of which I met on the Massey-Ferguson lobby, to provide project work based on the various schemes in its area. In the near future, two community services agencies are being set up in Ayrshire, with the Strathclyde regional council as sponsors, to provide community service schemes.
Those schemes are good, but, as my right hon. Friend and I have said time and again, they are no substitute for real jobs. I thank my right hon. Friend for what he said about the efforts made by the Secretary of State and myself to find work for the area in which people from Kilmarnock will find jobs.
Hoffman La Roche has recently announced the important expansion of its plant at Dalry to produce vitamin C. That is a costly project—it will total about £140 million—but will create about 430 long-term jobs, many of them for skilled people, and a substantial additional number over the construction period.
Only a week ago British Aerospace announced its intention to proceed with the launch of the re-engined version of the Jetstream aircraft at its Prestwick factory. I hope that many people from Kilmarnock will find jobs there. This project will lead to the creation of about 960 new jobs. If all goes well, it is possible that there will be between 1,200 and 1,500 new jobs. My Department is considering what assistance it might give to the project under the Industry Act. We shall support the project in every way possible. The Scottish Development Agency is involved at Prestwick with the new British Caledonian engine testing and maintenance facility.
Not far from Kilmarnock, at Irvine, the Beecham company has a factory which employs 600 people. The company is planning to expand production on a site adjacent to existing premises. The detailed employment consequences are not yet clear but it could mean a further 250 jobs. Hyster Ltd., at Irvine, plans to create an additional 450 jobs while safeguarding about 200 existing jobs.

Mr. William Ross: Does my right hon. Friend realise that, although these plans are welcome, the unemployment rate in that area is even higher than it is in Kilmarnock?

Mr. MacKenzie: I realise that. That is one reason why we are anxious about the situation.
I was pleased that my right hon. Friend paid tribute to the work done by my staff in connection with Neptune Glen-field. It is just over a year since Neptune Glenfield was formed by the take-

over of Glenfield Kennedy by the Neptune International Corporation of Atlanta. That takeover was aided by Government assistance amounting to about £1 million. We all remember the dilemma that faced that company last year. It is a tribute to the Secretary of State and the workers that it is now a success story. Perhaps the management of Massey-Ferguson should consider that with the same degree of ingenuity, enthusiasm and concentration other companies could be equally successful.
In the last year we have given over £1 million in selective financial assistance to firms in the Kilmarnock area. This will create investment of about £6,250,000. We hope that it will create or safeguard 565 jobs. The SDA for its part has helped Prosper Engineering and the McCrindle group in the area with small advance factories.
I realise, however, that my right hon. Friend is most anxious about Massey-Ferguson. That concern is shared by the Secretary of State and everybody in the Kilmarnock area. I assure my right hon. Friend that we shall do everything possible to preserve jobs at Massey-Ferguson, in the interests of the company and of the people of Kilmarnock.

NATIONAL SAVINGS BANK

4.55 a.m.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: It is a sign of the conscientiousness of Scottish Members, quite apart from the conscientiousness of Deputy Speakers, that at this ridiculous time of the morning we have heard the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) putting forward an excellent case for Massey-Ferguson and its workers. I had the pleasure of meeting the Massey-Ferguson workers when they came to London. After this short debate has ended, my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Mr. Monro) will be raising another important issue.
The main purpose of the debate is to seek answers to questions that I was asked to put to Treasury Ministers by trade unionists whom I met on 23rd October in Glasgow. I have been unable to obtain answers through the usual parliamentary means. Nothing makes people lose faith in parliamentary systems more than if


elected representatives are unable to ascertain what is going on, especially when a Government Department is involved. I hope that this morning the Minister will provide the information that he has declined to provide to date.
I must confess that there is a subsidiary purpose in raising the debate. It is common knowledge that the Treasury is usually regarded as being among the more helpful Departments for providing information. The reluctance of the Minister —what might be called his mysterious discourtesy—to provide even the most basic information makes me suspicious that something unusual and worrying is occurring.
My hon. Friends who are official spokesmen for the Conservative Party on Scotland and I asked the Minister of State, Treasury for a meeting to discuss the future of the National Savings Bank. The right hon. Gentleman declined, saying that a meeting would serve no useful purpose. However, he said that he would be happy to consider any Written Questions that I tabled. I provided a table consisting of a number of questions in writing in a letter dated 21st November. I asked eight specific questions that had been raised with me by the trade unionists. I received a reply today in which, unfortunately, the Minister has failed to reply to seven of the eight questions. His answer to the eighth question was that he did not know. It is an unfortunate start. I hope that the Minister will make good his position by providing some information this morning.
The Department of National Savings is one of the real British success stories in a rather mixed economic performance by the country generally. It provides a unique service for small savers. It enjoys a measure of public good will and confidence that any commercial or banking organisation would give its right arm to secure. It has been a unique help to Governments of all parties as the great majority of the cash that it receives from savers is passed on directly to Governments to ease the public sector borrowing requirement. The remainder goes to local authorities to help them with their problems.
It was a magnificent and welcome boost to Scotland when the Macmillan Government decided that the head-

quarters of the National Savings Bank should be dispersed to Glasgow. It has been one of the greatest success stories of dispersal and has been used as an example to argue for additional dispersal of Government Departments.
The Minister will be aware that Scottish Members arguing for the Ministry of Defence and other Departments to come to Scotland have used the success of the National Savings Bank as one of their main arguments. The bank has about 4,400 employees in Glasgow. It has provided unique opportunities and career structures for young people wishing to enter the Civil Service.
In the mid-1970s a feeling of insecurity began to develop among some of the staff of the National Savings Bank as they saw the way in which the bank nationalisation debate was developing within the Labour Party. It all started in 1971 when the Labour Party conference, against the advice of the national executive, committed the NEC to bringing forward proposals for bank nationalisation. A study group was formed under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Mikardo). In August 1973 it produced what might be termed an Opposition Green Paper called "Banking and Insurance ". It proposed a publicly owned banking corporation with powers to acquire the clearing banks. The home policy committee of the Labour Party was given responsibility for further work on banking and insurance.
In 1975 the home policy committee, chaired by the present Secretary of State for Energy, produced a paper that proposed the nationalisation of the big four. The debate developed and we heard Mr. Roger Opie, who I am sure the Minister will know, a fellow of New College, proposing sweeping nationalisation of the banks. As far as I recall, there was a call for the first time for the integration of the savings bank with the Giro.
The Government were disturbed about the effect of all the talk about bank nationalisation. For that reason, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster made a statement in the House in which he said that he could give
a complete, simple declaration that the Government had no intention of nationalizing any company in the banking sector."— [Official Report, 19th May 1976; Vol. 911, 1473.]


Despite this, in August 1976 the NEC published a booklet entitled "Banking and Finance." Among its many proposals was one which suggested the integration of publicly owned sections of the financial system by combining Giro with NSB.
At that stage we had the sterling crisis, and, although the Chancellor of the Duchy had given a clear assurance that bank nationalisation was off, it seemed that as the pound dropped enthusiasm in the Labour Party for nationalisation increased. The 1976 conference approved by more than a two-thirds majority the nationalisation of the big four, which made it official policy. This decision proved very unpopular with the bank unions. They were understandably concerned about the effect on jobs. So the Labour Party was landed with an official policy to nationalise the banks, which the Prime Minister had described as "an electoral albatross ". Obviously an escape route was sought from this embarrassing commitment.
In 1977 the Trades Union Congress rejected the proposals on banking and finance because of the strong feelings of the unions representing bank employees. Therefore, we saw a change of direction in the policies and attitudes of the NEC. I read in Labour Weekly of 18th March 1977 an article entitled "Blueprint for a State Bank" by the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson). In this he put forward his support for the merger of Giro and the National Savings Bank into a State bank. It was obviously a useful means of bridging the differences within the Labour Party. A Treasury study group was set up and the NEC working party had discussions with the unions involved.
The latest development in the state of play was in August 1978 when we had the publication of two documents which were generally interpreted as an admission that the Labour Party was going off bank nationalisation. First, we had the NEC report to the 1978 conference which contained an interim report from the working party. It supported the merger of Giro and the NSB while recognising that important questions still had to be answered. The second document, entitled "Into the Eighties ", was an agreement from the TUC-Labour liaison committee which stated that there was a need to look again

at existing institutions, notably Giro and the NSB, so that a new publicly owned bank could compete on equal terms.
Obviously, with all this going on since 1976, and with the Labour commitment to a merger between the NSB and Giro, there has been understandable concern in Glasgow. Such a merger would involve a massive change and would have devastating consequences. The more this has been looked at, the less the staff unions have liked it.
One of the two principal unions involved—the Society of Civil and Public Servants—summarised its fears in a pamphlet which it circulated to its members in October. I have a copy. It is headed "Jobs at Risk ". It explains how, at the Blackpool conference in 1976, the Labour Party firmly decided on a policy of nationalising the commanding heights of the economy. In the face of a carefully-orchestrated campaign of opposition, the Government were now seeking an escape route. A scheme was thus emerging to form a State bank by merging the activities of NSB and Giro. The pamphlet mentions that the most likely outcome of such a merger would be the creation of a small public corporation which would operate through the outlet of local post offices. On a more serious note it says that the merger would pose a formidable threat to the prosperity of the National Savings Bank, which is based at Cowglen in Glasgow, and would lead to very serious job losses. That was a pamphlet issued by one of the principal unions involved. Its fears are considerable.
The unions are scared about the consequences of the upheaval of joining a Government Department with a public corporation, namely, the Post Office. They are worried about the consequences of the Civil Service status of the employees. They are worried in particular about the effects on public confidence of a controversial proposal to set up a State bank. If we had a loss of public confidence in the National Savings Bank, this could have very serious consequences on the turnover of business.
They are very concerned about the possible effect of the removal of tax concessions, which is one of the most valuable aids available to the National Savings Bank. They are concerned about the inevitable rationalisation which could stem


from such a move. They are also concerned about how post offices could cope with the diversity of business of a State bank. They are also concerned, as many people would be, about what appears to be the undesirability of upsetting something which is working extremely well in the public interest.
As a result of all this, they invited Glasgow Members of Parliament to a meeting. The general secretary of the Society of Civil and Public Servants made it quite clear that his society would oppose the possibility of the plan root and branch.
What is going on? I set out to try to find out. I put down a Question to the Minister asking whether there was a Treasury study going on. I was told "Yes ". Then I wrote to the Minister saying that, in view of the confirmation that a study group was looking at this possibility, my hon. Friends who are Scottish spokesmen for the party and myself would like a meeting with him. I received an answer that this, in his view, would serve no useful purpose. In the meantime, the Minister had written to the chairman of the staff side at the National Savings Bank, Mr. Adamson, stating—this was the assurance—that
 there is no question but that the Glasgow centre will continue in operation, whether or not there is a merger.
What precisely does the Minister mean by saying that
 there is no question but that the Glasgow centre will continue "?
What does that mean in terms of jobs? What is the nature of the assurance that he is giving? Is he giving the assurance that the Savings Bank will be there, the headquarters of a new department, or what? Will he try to spell out a little more precisely what he means by that assurance?
The chairman of the staff side, Mr. Adamson—who, as the Minister will know, is not a man noted for his moderate views—put out a statement saying that he was quite happy with this, that he thought there had been scaremongering going on, that a great deal had been made unnecessarily by some people in the NSB and outside, and that he wished to dissociate himself from it. The Minister will be aware that Mr. Adamson is no longer the chairman of the staff side. He will

also possibly be aware that one of the major unions involved, immediately after that statement, publicly dissociated itself from it. The Minister will be aware that the SCPS is sending deputations to meet Scottish Members of Parliament of both major parties tomorrow in the House of Commons to try to find out more about what is going on. I can assure the Minister, as many of my constituents work there, that a substantial number of people did not find it very reassuring to read a letter from the Minister in which the only specific assurance was that there would be consultation and that the Glasgow centre would continue in operation.
The Minister specifically said that he would answer detailed questions if I wrote to him. If he will look at his letter of 16th November, he will see that he said:
 If there are still specific points on which you feel concerned, I will be happy to consider them if you would like to write setting them out.

The Minister of State, Treasury (Mr. Denzil Davies): Would the hon. Gentleman say where in that letter I said that I would answer specific questions?

Mr. Taylor: I may be reading something into English which is not there, but I suggest that when the Minister writes and says that he is not prepared to meet one because it would not serve a useful purpose but then says:
If there are still specific points on which you feel concerned, I will he happy to consider them if you would like to write setting them out ",
that is, in the usual courtesy of parliamentary language, an indication that the Minister would be happy to try to cooperate in providing information.

Mr. Denzil Davies: I am sorry to intervene, but the hon. Gentleman seems to be in the habit of misconstruing English. I have not said in that letter—and he cannot point to it—that I would answer his specific questions.

Mr. Taylor: The Minister is quite right; he did not say that he would answer the question. But if the Minister refuses a meeting and then says that he will be happy to consider questions which I put to him, I think that he should treat them with some seriousness and courtesy, particularly bearing in mind the seriousness of the issue, the views of the union


involved and the fact that for a considerable time we have been trying to find out exactly what is going on.
What sort of questions did I ask? Were they impossible, unreasonable questions? Here they are.
 Who is actually considering the possibility of the merger—is it a section of your own Department and can interested bodies make representations to it? 
That was the first question. I think the Minister will agree that there was no reply in the letter which he sent to me three weeks later. Secondly,
 When do you estimate that a decision will be made? 
This was the one question which the Minister did answer. He said:
 It is not possible to say ".
Thirdly, I asked
 In considering the possibility of a merger, is it envisaged that the outcome, if agreed, would be a state bank competing with the joint stock banks?
No answer.
 Would such a merged operation continue to operate the tax concession at present given to National Savings Bank investors?
No answer.
 Would the new merged body have to operate through Post Office counters?
No answer.
 Would employees of the National Savings Bank lose their Civil Service status?
No answer.
 If the details of the plan are still not resolved, on what basis are you able to give the assurance that jobs in Cowglen would not be affected?
No answer.
 What were the considerations which led to the initiative of the inquiry into the possible merger?
No answer. I suggest that, while the Minister appears to be going on the detailed wording of his reply, it is not a particularly helpful response to Glasgow Members of Parliament asking about a very important employer of labour and a great success story.
I hope that the Minister will try to answer some of these questions this morning. There is now a situation of growing uncertainty. I should like the Minister perhaps to consider some other questions. Can he tell us why the Treasury is considering such a merger?

Is it only because of the NEC, or is there some other reason? Surely that is not an unreasonable question to ask in relation to a major merger which could have a significant effect on a very successful Government department and, indeed, on a public corporation. It is not unreasonable, particularly when resources are limited, to ask why he is considering this merger.
It is also reasonable to ask what benefits the Minister envisages from such a measure, if it takes place. If the Government are spending a great deal of time and trouble thinking about a merger, they must have thought that some potential benefits were available to the community from it. Who is considering this? Is it just the Treasury or the NEC, or what is the relationship between the two? It is also fair to ask whether he can give an assurance —this is desperately important to the other banks in the private sector —that, if the outcome of the inquiry is the establishment of a State bank, there will be fair competition with the private sector.
Is the Minister willing to answer those questions? Will he be willing to meet myself and my two hon. Friends who are official spokesmen for the Conservative Party on Scotland? In 14 years of parliamentary experience, I have never had a refusal from a Minister to have a meeting, particularly on an issue as important as this. Does he appreciate the importance of an early decision? Uncertainty does not help.
My basic fear is that the welfare and prosperity of a successful, viable and respected Government department is being put in the melting pot for no other reason than a rather pathetic attempt to resolve an ideological conflict within the Labour Party, stemming from a policy decision on nationalisation at its conference.
It is time that this uncertainty was put to an end. Certainly, when official representatives of a trade union are taking the trouble to come to Parliament tomorrow to see representatives of the Scottish Labour Party and the Scottish Conservative Party, it is desperately important for us to be able to say something to them, and we should have some information about what plans the Minister has for an important Government department. This Government are meant to


practise open government, concerned with consultation and with giving information. It is high time that the Minister gave us some indication of what is going on, and why it is going on.

5.15 a.m.

The Minister of State, Treasury (Mr. Denzil Davies): The hon Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Taylor) said that there has been some scaremongering about this matter. If so, it has not been alleviated by the interpretation—I know that he is not entirely responsible for what appears in the Scottish press, but I have read it—which he put on a straightforward parliamentary answer that I gave him.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: Give an example.

Mr. Davies: The examples are pretty clear. The way in which he released my answer and his comments to the press are a good example of how not to stop scaremongering.
The hon. Gentleman said that the National Savings Bank had been a great success. I would like to express my appreciation and that of the Government to the staff at Cowglen for all their hard work and enthusiasm, which has helped to make the move to Glasgow and the introduction of mechanisation especially so successful. I would also thank the Glasgow district council, which has given its full support to the venture.
At 31st October 1978 the amount invested with the NSB stood at over £3,000 million. Total deposits have grown by some 46 per cent. in the last five years. Much of this growth has been accounted for by the quite remarkable success of the investment account. Since 1973 the balance remaining invested has risen from just under £550 million in 0.8 million accounts to over £1,200 million in 1·08 million accounts. The ordinary account has also shown steady progress. This is a commendable achievement in the face of fierce competition for personal sector liquid deposits.
The success of the National Savings Bank has been in large part due to the ease with which business can be transacted through the medium of post offices. This effectively provides the NSB with the unique asset of over 20,000 outlets throughout the United Kingdom.
I now turn to the proposal for merging the National Savings Bank and the National Girobank. At the outset, let me repeat what I have stated on a number of occasions. The Government have taken no decision on the proposal and the National Savings Bank centre in Glasgow, in Cowglen, will continue in operation, whatever the final decision on the merger. I can give the hon. Gentleman all the assurances he seeks about the staff and the future of the operation. I say this because I am conscious of the deep concern among the staff, arising from the unreasonable interpretation which the hon. Member chose to place on the parliamentary answer I gave him recently. As the Minister responsible for the National Savings Bank, I have taken steps to reassure the staff concerned about their future in the letter that I wrote to them. But I should not like there to be any further misunderstandings as a result of anything said in the debate. I can give the hon. Gentleman all the assurances he seeks regarding the staff and the operation at Cowglen, whether there is a merger or not.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: Can the Minister give a clear assurance on one simple matter, which is important concerning computers—that if there is a merger the headquarters of whatever merger is established will be in Glasgow?

Mr. Davies: I can give the hon. Member the complete assurance that the headquarters of the National Savings Bank will be in Glasgow, even if there is a merger, and whatever form such a merger might take. There will be no change in the Glasgow operation. The hon. Gentleman looks surprised, but perhaps he has come late to this debate.
The idea of merging the National Savings Bank and the National Girobank is not new. The hon. Member mentioned the Labour Party national executive. I do not know whether he has read the Page report. In 1973 it noted the existence of these two somewhat complementary services operating across post office counters. The services are, of course, complementary. There is the deposit-taking operation of the NSB—the Glasgow operation—and there is the money-transfer operation of the National Girobank. If there was a merger it would not mean that one would have to go.


The two would be maintained because they are an inherent part of any type of banking operation.
The Page committee suggested that in the longer term a merger between the two organisations might be one means of ensuring that neither the NSB nor the Giro would run into difficulties because of an inadequacy of their current individual balances.
The Carter report on the Post Office also mentioned the possibility of a merger, but while both committees favoured a merger in principle they were aware that there was a considerable number of practical difficulties on which a good deal of work would need to be done.
Finally, the merger was also recommended in an NEC document of the Labour Party, and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister commissioned a thorough examination of the proposal. Since then extensive studies have been undertaken of the financial, managerial and technical aspects of the merger. The unions and the staff most closely concerned have been consulted.
Accompanied by my right hon. Friends the Ministers of State for the Civil Service and for Industry, I have seen the Department of National Savings staff side, the Society of Civil and Public Servants, which represents both NSB and Giro staff, and the Post Office unions. I have met them more than once at the Treasury. We have discussed all their problems and fears, and all the difficulties of a merger of this kind. We have taken careful note of their points and I have assured them —and I believe that they are happy with this assurance—that they will again be consulted before any final decisions are taken, if, indeed, final decisions are taken. I believe that those assurances have satisfied the members of the unions I have talked to and the employees at Cowglen to whom I have talked.
It has become apparent from the studies and consultations that the merger idea raises a number of complex issues. I do not deny that. I approach the matter with a wholly open mind. We are currently looking at these issues, but as yet we have not reached a decision either on the idea of a merger or on the form which a merged organisation might take.

There is nothing I can usefully say at this stage about the implications of the merger proposals. We have not decided whether to have a merger. We have merely been looking at a number of possibilities.
In the meantime, I stress what I have said before. There is no threat to the future of the National Savings Bank in Glasgow or to the future of employment should a merger take place. Those closely connected will be consulted before any final decisions are taken.
I turn now to the future of the NSB, because I am sure that the hon. Member for Cathcart wishes to see the bank develop, as do the Government.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: How can the right hon. Gentleman say that the unions he met were satisfied with his assurances when he knows that the Society of Civil and Public Servants has since opposed the proposal root and branch? Does he not accept that?

Mr. Davies: The hon. Gentleman seems to make a habit of misunderstanding things. I never said that the union was not against the merger. I am well aware of its views. I believe that it is satisfied with the assurances I gave, first, that there would be no change in the Glasgow operation if there were a merger, and, secondly, that we shall be consulting it again before any decision is taken on the merger. It will be kept fully in the picture.
I turn to the future of the National Savings Bank. I do not know what the policy of the Conservative Party is, but it is certainly the policy of the present Government to develop the NSB as a very important force in the savings movement. A prime requirement for success for the NSB is a competitive rate of interest. As the recent announcement of a substantial increase in the investment account rate demonstrates, we intend to ensure that NSB interest rates remain competitive with those available on comparable investments. As with the other national savings media, the terms available on NSB accounts are kept under pretty constant review. We are currently looking at a range of possible methods of ensuring that the NSB continues to remain attractive to investors, perhaps —and this is an example of what could


be done in future—by introducing, in due course, term deposits in the investment account service, thereby enabling the NSB to compete more fully with other institutions that take deposits outside the public sector.
In common with all national savings facilities, our broad objectives for the NSB are to provide a safe and attractive home for the savings of the personal saver, and at the same time—and this is extremely important and will perhaps become more important as time goes on—providing an alternative way of financing the public sector borrowing requirement outside the gilt-edged market. I firmly believe that it is extremely important that we develop national savings to assist in the funding of the Government's debt. There is a considerable future for national savings along this route.
With the aid of a highly mechanised system of administration, an enthusiastic and a competent work force and a competitive interest rate policy, the NSB will be able to contribute fully to the achievement of these objectives. Indeed, I foresee, as has happened over the last few years, a continuing growth in the strength of the NSB. The hon. Gentleman will welcome this because it will be a safeguard and will mean development in Glasgow, which is the headquarters of the NSB.
I reiterate what I have said. I am confident that the staff at Cowglen can look forward to a sound future. I can give the hon. Gentleman the assurance which he requires — that there would be no change in the operation at Cowglen if there was a merger, on which a decision has not yet been taken. There is no question of taking the headquarters of the NSB from Glasgow. That operation will continue and it will continue in full.
With those assurances, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will in future approach this matter in a more rational way and perhaps look at it more logically than he has done in the past.

SPORTS COUNCIL

5.27 a.m.

Mr. Hector Monro: I am very grateful to the Minister of State for being here at 5.30 a.m. to answer this debate after a long gruelling night in

which he has had to answer another debate. This is a miserable hour at which to start any debate. I think that it shows the enthusiasm of the House and of us both for sport.
Our last debate on sport was somewhat overshadowed by football hooliganism, but this time the debate is about the Sports Council grant and other moneys in the Estimate. Since that debate, there have been major changes in the personnel of the Sports Council. The House will join in the warm welcome to Mr. Dick Jeeps as chairman of the Sports Council and Mr. Emlyn Jones as director. I know that both will be of inestimable importance to sport in the years ahead. Equally warm thanks are due to Sir Robin Brook and Sir Walter Winterbottom on their retirement for what they did for sport during their term of office.
I think that this is the right moment, too, to give a welcome to Peter Heatley, of the Scottish Sports Council, and Jack Allan, of the Sports Council in Northern Ireland, on their appointments. Wales goes happily rolling along unchanged and as efficiently as ever. It is right, too, that the Minister and I should say how glad we both are that Mrs. Glen Haig has continued in the chair of the Central Council for Physical Recreation. She performs her task most successfully.
This morning we want to consider the Estimates and look at the progress of the Sports Council in relation to the annual grant and at what continuing inflation has meant in relation to that grant. It has certainly been a headache to governing bodies, sports clubs and individuals. The original grant for 1978–79 was £12·2 million, which was an increase of a mere £700,000 on the 1977–78 grant of £11·5 million That was the block grant for general purposes, which was obviously less than the sum required to keep up with inflation. That block grant still remains. But on 25th May 1978 another £2 million was announced by the Minister—£1 million, I understand, for inner city areas and youth sports programmes, and £1 million for schemes by the major football clubs. That makes £14·2 million, as in the Estimates.
I think it is important to accept that that extra £2 million is not exactly at the discretion of the Sports Council. The Minister's schemes, following consultation with the Sports Council, were detailed and


agreed by the Council. I am not suggesting that they were not worthy objectives, but I shall have two comments to make later. I think that we should also record another £1 million, announced this autumn, for urban deprivation, making a total of £15·2 million.
The comments that I make on the system of additional grants are that all money should be given to the Sports Council as a block grant at the beginning of the year for it to use at its discretion. I am sure that the Minister will have full confidence in the Sports Council to do just that. Obviously the close relationship that the Minister has with the Council will ensure that discussions take place on the Council's spending policy.
Secondly, as I am sure the Minister will appreciate, the making of announcements in June and the autumn make the financial year a terrible rush for the Sports Council to prepare proper plans to spend the money to its best advantage. Whilst there may be particular reasons for making the money available later in the year, it puts this great task on the Council to spend it before the end of the financial year.
Will the Minister, in reply, say what progress has been made with the schemes? Will all the money be spent in this financial year? Will he also be specific about the football grounds scheme? I hear that some all-weather pitches have been provided. Is the progress of these schemes as fast as he would like, and are matters developing in the way that he would wish?
I welcome the provision of money for urban deprivation, though I hope that the Minister will not forget rural deprivation. Young people in the countryside often lead miserable lives because they have no recreational facilities. I hope that the Minister will keep an eye on a fair balance.
Earlier this year, when I made a speech covering urban deprivation—it showed that there was little between us on urban deprivation—I said:
The greater co-operation between local authorities and football clubs is a high priority. In some areas this type of co-operation has been non-existent, and both the club and the local community have suffered. We recognise that league football in many places is not a profitable business, but it is an important part of the social fabric of our towns. Frequently football clubs form the natural focus of interest

for thousands of sports spectators, and they are often situated in central positions near depressed run-down housing areas in desperate need of social and recreational facilities. We would like to see the clubs and councils cooperating on the redevelopment of stadia to provide a wider range of sporting facilities, a social centre and to ensure better use of the existing space.
Football is our national game, and the Sports Council spends a fair proportion on it, as can be deduced from the annual report's list of sports supported. But football seems to have other sources of finance, such as the Minister's special grants shown in the Estimates. There is also the Football Ground Improvement Trust to help improve stadiums. We must keep a close eye on moves towards the football board, as recommended by the Royal Commission on Gambling. A national lottery is hypothetical at this stage, but I wish the Government would raise the limit on local lotteries, which seem to be helpful to sport generally.
I am sure that the Minister will keep a watchful eye on the legal case on charitable trusts that is now proceeding. Legislation may have to be introduced.
There is a Sports Council grant of £15.2 million, but the arts receive about £49 million. In some of the Sunday newspapers there was an indication that there would be an additional £6 million this year for museums. All these figures must be kept in perspective.
I believe that next year the Sports Council will make a bid for substantially increased resources. This highlights how the value of sport and recreation has increased in the population's minds. Government thinking must evolve and react to these aspirations and, with local authorities, go as far to meet them as national resources allow. A switch of priorities within national expenditure limits would seem to be the only way forward at present.
I asked the Minister about the spending of the additional resources during the present financial year. Is there any chance of a roll-over if the money is unspent, which must be a possibility? If the Chancellor of the Exchequer would allow it, we should move towards loans at low interest rates, or interest-free loans, rather than grants, except for pump-priming. Then there would be more money circulating within


sport, and loans could be repaid from income over a period of years. Does the Minister have a view on that?
Within the terms of the Royal charter, the Sports Council should have as much autonomy as possible, while always consulting the Government, the Central Council for Physical Recreation and governing bodies. I would not expect the Minister to interfere on day-to-day issues, but there seems to be a major decision ahead for the Sports Council—whether to leave the Knightbridge headquarters. That would affect the CCPR and the many sports with their headquarters there. There is talk of a "house of sport ", or less expensive accommodation. Has the Minister given any advice? If so, what is it? Is the Sports Council expected to fund whatever decision is taken within the normal Estimates?
In circular 47/76, when the Minister set up the regional councils of sport and recreation, he indicated that, when the finances of the Countryside Commission permitted, the staff would be paid by the Commission. Is there any change in the position? Are resources improving for the Commission to pay the staff of the regional councils?
Is the Sports Council or the Minister having any success in accelerating the dual use of sports facilities in our schools? We could do much better. Although everyone is aiming at this objective, I do not think that we are moving in the right direction as quickly as we should. Some authorities have shown what can be done. Certainly the Services have done it. All agree that when it has been achieved it has been a great success. Is the Minister making progress with the Secretary of State for Education and Science, or the local authorities, towards this end?
The 1980 Olympics approach. Obviously preparations are dealt with in this year's budget. An important consideration in our preparations ought to be the centres of excellence. The British Olympic Association, under Sir Denis Follows, and the Sports Aid Foundation, under Mr. Paul Zetter, have been doing very well. But I doubt whether the centres of excellence have been as effective in helping gifted athletes as we had hoped. I know that it is comparatively early days yet. There are exceptions. I

have seen a good weight-lifting centre in Birmingham, and we have all been greatly encouraged by Jim Fox and his pentathletes at Arborfield. Are the other centres developing as quickly as the Minister would have wished?
Can the Minister say anything about the development of international coaching? One of our weaknesses is the lack of international coaches of top calibre to train our sportsmen and women. This is something which will come with experience, but we all want it to come quicker. These are points on which the Minister may have a view. I know that he is anxious, as we all are, that we should do as well as possible in the Olympics. Within this context, the governing bodies and the willing volunteers have an extremely important part to play.
I have asked the Minister a number of questions which I hope he can answer. I appreciate the time and effort he puts into sport and the understanding we have between us. This is a valuable occasion on which he can spell out what is happening to the additional moneys in the Estimate and tell us whether he feels that they are adequate to deal with the demand for better facilities from the general public and the wishes of the nation to do better in international competition.

5.42 a.m.

The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Mr. Denis Howell): By leave of the House, may I say that, even at this late hour, and despite the fact that the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. Monro) has a heavy cold, I am delighted that he has been able to initiate this brief debate, since we both share the view that we do not have sufficient time to debate these important matters on the Floor of the House.
I start my reply to the hon. Member's speech by joining with him in appreciation of all those serving sport, or who have served it and have recently retired. Certainly Dickie Jeeps and Emlyn Jones, at the Sports Council, have got off to an extremely good start. It is a fresh, new combination which sport will value. That is in no way to detract from the considerable contribution over a number of years of Sir Robin Brook and Sir Walter Winterbottom. Sir Walter has now joined my staff on a part-time basis.


in a consultancy capacity. His first job will be to make sure that the international political side of our work is maintained. There is a degree of continuity there, following the successful meeting of the sports Ministers of the Council of Europe here in April.
That work continues, and there is other work which I am certain needs to be done on how the development of the sale of sports goods and British technical knowhow abroad can be co-ordinated and improved for the benefit of our industry, our sport and our national economy. The countries whose markets we are trying to penetrate often expect some form of assistance in return by way of coaching, the development of their own talent and so on. I believe that Sir Walter is uniquely placed to advise us on those matters.
I, too, join in the welcome to Peter Heatley and Jack Allan, and I express my gratitude certainly to Mary Glen Haig who succeeded me as chairman of the Central Council for Physical Recreation. I know more than most what difficulties lie in the way of chairing a body which comprises some 200 governing bodies of sport. As the hon. Gentleman will know from his own sporting experience in rugby, it is no easy matter.
I turn now to the question of additional grants. We were able to find an additional £3 million this year. Although it is true that some of that could not be announced until June, in private discussions with the chairman, secretary and director of the Sports Council I had intimated that it might be possible well before the end of the last financial year, and I asked them to be ready to come forward with schemes if I found it possible within my Department's Estimates to provide money for the very things which the hon. Gentleman acknowledges as valuable. I was delighted to be asked about them. I think particularly of the need to get football clubs closely integrated with the affairs of their own local community and their supporters, which is an aspect of these matters which has caused us so much trouble. So when the announcement came they were ready to move on, and I had a letter this week from the director of the Sports Council assuring me that all the additional funds will be spent by 31st March. That is our

expectation at the moment, and we all hope that that will prove to be the case.
I do not think that the hon. Gentleman wants me to go into great detail on how that money is being spent, but I can say that two areas are of tremendous importance. I acknowledge the importance of rural deprivation, and one would hope to do something about that a little later, but the social problems in our cities are so pressing that it was right, in my judgment and in the Sports Council's judgment, to give this area first priority.
This year £650,000 out of the £3 million will go to the areas of special need. This is on schemes for grants to local authorities and voluntary organisations —community-based schemes, kickabout areas, projects involving youth clubs, assistance to ethnic minorities, that sort of thing.
Incidentally, the football and community scheme is going extremely well. There are 35 schemes altogether under way out of the extra money—30 with football clubs and five with rugby league. The football clubs involve 11 clubs in the first division, six in the second, eight in the third and five in the fourth. One can see how that is spread over the divisions.
I am particularly pleased that out of this extra money the Sports Council has started a small equipment fund. Under this scheme, each region of the country—I think that it is nine regions in England —has been allocated £25,000. They will buy all sorts of equipment, such as footballs, cricket balls, cricket bats, boxing gloves, rackets of one sort or another, table tennis tables and so on. The regional sports councils will own this equipment, keeping an inventory of it, but will lease it out more or less on a permanent basis to clubs especially in deprived areas—to youngsters who would not otherwise be able to field a cricket team, for example, because of the high cost of equipment.
I have high hopes that that small amount of money in each region will generate a lot of sporting activity where we want it, among youngsters in the back streets and in the local communities. I am delighted to see the hon. Gentleman nod in approval of this scheme, which is of great importance.
We have not lost sight of the important charity law case. We are keeping the


matter under close observation. Interstfree loans are also something of great interest to us. The subject is currently under discussion in my Department.
The Sports Council has set up a working party to consider the accommodation situation, and it will be discussed at the Council's next meeting. We keep in touch with events, but, of course, we have to be careful about the amount of public expenditure that we can promise. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman has to be even more careful than I, since his colleagues are committed to rather rigorous control on public expenditure, but no doubt he had that in mind when he requested more assistance.
We have made a lot of progress on the question of dual use in the last 10 years, but I share the hon. Gentlemen's concern that it could be even greater. I have proposed a meeting with my colleagues of the Department of Education and Science to consider how, in the next 12 months, we can give additional emphasis to this move, since it is clear to all of us that, if we can get existing buildings fully utilised, that is a much more economic method of using our funds.
I am particularly concerned about the community use of primary schools. Every neighbourhood has a primary school. Each primary school has a playground which could perhaps be floodlit, and has a hall of some sort. I believe that we could perhaps build an additional social area or room on to a primary school, with possibly some showers and so on, and at a modest sum open up considerable capital projects in quite a dramatic way.
Some authorities have done that. For example, Walsall has pioneered such developments, and its chief education officer also has responsibility for recreation and sport. Walsall has made a first-class contribution which I appreciate. We shall continue to foster the educational side of our affairs.
The hon. Gentleman also talked about the local authorities and arts expenditure. There is constant confusion in this area. First, we are not comparing like with like. The Sports Council spends almost the whole of its money on amateur sport, whereas the Arts Council spends almost the whole of its money on professional theatre and music. For example, the Sports Council is not called upon to pay

towards the salaries of professional footballers, thank goodness, whereas the Arts Council is called upon to pay the salaries of musicians and actors in our orchestras and in the National Theatre and so on.
Furthermore, the Government's contribution to local authority sport is enormous, much greater than in the arts. It is in that area that most of our citizens enjoy their sport and their recreation. This year alone we estimate that the current expenditure of local authorities on the seven headings which make up sport and recreation will be over £457 million, whereas the capital expenditure will be about £83 million. Those are considerable figures on sport and recreation. The Government provide just over 60 per cent. of that money.
In a previous debate initiated by the hon. Gentleman, I announced the setting up of the Football Ground Improvement Trust. It started by imposing a levy of 10 per cent. on all the spot-the-ball competitions which the Football Pools Promoters Association runs. The contribution was steadily increased and it is now running at 20 per cent. of all the entry money. I think I am right in saying that the amount currently coming into the Football Ground Improvement Trust is running at about £3 million, which is phenomenal, and I must express my appreciation, which is very sincere indeed, to the Football Pools Promoters Association, particularly to Littlewoods, Vernons and Zetters, which are the main participants, and their directors, and to Mr. Alan Hardaker, who was one of the authors of the scheme. The importance of the money going to football grounds to enable them to comply with the rigid sports safety legislation cannot be overestimated. It is of tremendous importance, and I know that the hon. Gentleman will want to join me in expressing appreciation of what is a most generous provision.
Likewise, in my White Paper of a year or two ago I announced the establishment of the Sports Aid Foundation and the centres of excellence. More than 60 such centres were established during the first year, which again was tremendous progress. There has been a great take-up. I am extremely indebted to the regional sports councils for all the work that they have done, and to the colleges, universities and local authorities which have


joined in these schemes. They will make a contribution towards the 1980 Olympics training programme—like the hon. Gentleman, I think that it would be foolish to overstate that—but they were really intended to be of great help for the 1984 Olympics. They were set up with a longer-term view in mind, but of course they will make some contribution to the 1980 Olympics.
The second leg of that proposal was the establishment of the Sports Aid Foundation, which has been another astonishing success story. I have seen the hon. Gentleman at some of its functions, so I think that all of us here can congratulate the foundation. Mr. Paul Zetter, its chairman, has worked tirelessly and almost full-time to help raise money as well as to ensure that the money goes to those who ought to receive financial support for their preparation and training programmes. Our thanks are due to Mr. Zetter, his colleagues and their staff.
I was asked about the Countryside Commission's staff. Just as I was able to offer additional funds to the Sports Council during the year, so I was able to offer additional funds to the Countryside Commission and to the Nature Conservancy Council, both of which are very important in recreational terms. Both organisations assure me that the money will be spent and that they have schemes which have long been awaiting attention. Exciting proposals are coming from both organisations about how the town and countryside can be brought together, particularly with areas of deprivation in mind, and we can make a contribution here by, for example, having town farms, opening up green fields and developing the countryside and nature conservancy. Some exciting thinking is going on in the whole of that area.
I have not yet been able to provide even more additional funds for extra staff for the Countryside Commission and the regional sports councils, but I am very anxious to do so if only because when I first established the new regional councils for sport and recreation the Commission was a bit sceptical about whether they would be worth while. I think that the Commission is now totally converted to the view that this fundamental change of getting the Countryside Commission into the regions with an active presence

has done nothing but good and enhanced the contribution which the Commission is making.
The chairmen of all the regions have written to me asking for help and I shall do my best to provide it as soon as I can. I want to assist them. I can give the hon. Member for Dumfries a good interim report. I thank him for his kind personal references, which I appreciate and reciprocate. We both have the best interests of sport at heart and will do our best, with, I hope, the support of all our colleagues in the House, to further the objectives of our sports and recreational policy.

REGIONAL POLICY AND INDUSTRY

6 a.m.

Mr. Mike Noble: I am pleased to have the opportunity to initiate this debate, though I am not sure that the time is particularly appropriate. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for having stayed up all night to reply.
The subject of the debate was deliberately chosen to cover a wide area, but I wish to concentrate on the North-West as an example of the regional problem. The cause of the regional problems in all parts of the country has been well documented in the House. It arises principally from the operation of free market forces for more than 200 years, particularly in my part of the country, which is generally recognised as the cradle of the Industrial Revolution.
One question that will have to be faced in the relatively near future is whether this country has regional problems or, in the context of Europe, is becoming a regional problem itself. The same economic forces that created the regional problems in this country are operating on a much wider scale from the centre of the EEC based on the Rhine basin.
We know the symptoms of the regional difficulties that we face. Old industries are declining. I shall give some examples in a statistical form. We have a worn-out infrastructure. My hon. Friends and I are in touch, for example, with the North-West water authority, which has indicated the enormous problems it faces below the ground in dealing with sewerage and water. We have insufficient


investment in new technology. We have had a changing structure of firms in the North-West. More and more firms have become part of national or even multinational companies with headquarters away from the North-West. Establishments in the North-West have become, in many cases, outlying provinces of the main part of the firm and they feel the main squeeze at a time of recession when we have closures or short-time working.
We also have an over-centralised form of government under which too many decisions concerning the North-West are taken in London when they could be taken within a democratic structure in the North-West or in the other regions concerned.
Those are the sorts of problem that we must discuss, together with the means of assisting the regions to overcome them. The difficulties facing the regions will become clearer if we consider one or two facts affecting major industries. The regional imbalance is largely caused by the fact that we have too high a proportion of employment in "sensitive" industries—I think of textiles and footwear in my constituency. In 1971, a total of 20·4 per cent. of the employed population worked in the textile, clothing and leather industries compared with a national proportion of 13·4 per cent. In 1976 18·8 per cent. of the employed population worked in those three industries compared with a national figure of 12·4 per cent.
We are aware of the way in which those industries have suffered as a result of the world recession and because of low-cost imports. In that respect the concentration of that type of employment in some areas of the North-West makes the employment position in many towns, particularly in my constituency, more vulnerable.
Between 1971 and 1976 there was a 21 per cent. job loss in the textile industry and a 12 per cent. job loss in the clothing and footwear industries in the North-West. During that time 30 per cent. of the jobs in the coal and petroleum industries disappeared. About 30 per cent. of the jobs in metal manufacturing disappeared. The mechanical engineering industry experienced a job loss of 18 per cent.
What would the loss of employment have been if the Government had not introduced measures to preserve employment? What would have been the job loss in the North-West textile and footwear industries if the Government had not introduced temporary employment subsidy? That subsidy alone has saved more than 100,000 jobs in the North-West. The figures that I have just given would be more serious without that type of support.
There can be little wonder that there has been a population decline in the North-West. It is part of a long-term trend. There is a high net migration rate.
One can examine the regional deprivation syndrome from a range of different points. There has been an improvement in the unemployment rate. In January 1975 unemployment in the North-West was one-third above the national average. By January this year it had dropped to 21 per cent. above the national average.
Earnings in the North-West are generally below the national average. The indices of material wealth in the NorthWest—possession of a telephone, refrigerator, car and so on—are well below the national average. The number of children in the region who leave school at the age of 16 is way above the national average. That is the scale of the problem that must be tackled.
The Government's approach to these problems is well documented. I place on record my appreciation of the financial assistance which the Government have provided. The sections 7 and 8 schemes under the Industry Act have been helpful to industry in the North-West. From an answer which I received from the Minister last week I learnt of the amount of money involved in regional development grants and other forms of assistance to the textile industry. Assistance has been given to the footwear and other industries. Help has been given to inner city areas. The number of people in training in the North-West is above the national average. The Government also help by the temporary employment subsidy and by investing in young people.
But the attitude of the Department of Industry on some issues is disappointing. For example, I am disturbed that the intermediate areas find it difficult to obtain financial assistance from the


European Investment Bank. I have asked Questions about the role of the Department of Industry, in its capacity of agent for the European Investment Bank, when requests for finance are made for projects in intermediate areas as opposed to special development and development areas.
Concern is also expressed about the regional role of the National Enterprise Board. One of the disappointing features of the regional board was that the representation of regional trade union representatives was somewhat limited. I recall visiting the Department of Industry and arguing that we should have on the board a broader representation from the Labour movement.
Many of us express disappointment that planning agreements have not been forthcoming and that we do not have the structure to ensure that the regional plans of many national and multinational firms, especially in the North-West, are co-ordinated with Government assistance through the mechanism of planning agreements.
I express those disappointments, but it must be accepted that over the past four years we have had a clear and specific commitment from the Government to the assisted areas. The amount of Government finance available to support investment and to support jobs has been increased by an enormous proportion compared with what went before during the previous Conservative Administration.
What is the Conservative attitude to regional policy? I know that some of my constituents are concerned that there is no clear indication of the nature of that policy. What has that to do with the debate? I must make it clear that only last Friday I attended a meeting of the North-East Lancashire Development Association that represents six or seven local authorities in North-East Lancashire, an intermediate area. Questions were raised about the effect on the confidence of manufacturers bearing in mind the uncertainty about the regional policy in future. I was able to say that the Labour Party would continue its policy and that as we would be continuing in government for a long time the lack of confidence was misplaced. Nevertheless, there is some doubt about

the attitude of the Conservative Party towards regional aid.
The right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) said:
 we believe that these subsidies and grants "—
those are the subsidies and grants that are directed to industry—
 do more harm than good. They will not make us more competitive… We believe that subsidies and grants and, indeed, the industrial strategy distract management and workers from the key task of putting their house in order by co-operation between themselves.
The right hon. Gentleman added:
 these grants and subsidies may rescue some jobs but only at the cost of other jobs."— [Official Report, 4th July 1978; Vol. 952, c. 255–56.]
That is probably as clear a statement as we have been able to secure from the Opposition on their attitude towards regional policy.
In February the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition, when talking about changes in the regions, made a remarkable observation. She said:
 Jobs lost in declining industries can be replaced by new jobs elsewhere.
I wish that the right hon. Lady would visit my constituency to explain to the textile workers and the footwear operatives exactly where they would find new jobs in a valley where there is little room for industrial development and where 60 per cent. of employment is based on those two industries.
We have had contradictory statements from leading Opposition speakers. The right hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker) said:
 The free market condemns the weal and therefore becomes a powerful source for social disorder.
He added:
 It is a distressing spectacle to watch a small, but vocal and apparently influential section of the Tory Party bow down to worship the free market gods which brought so much squalor, so many slums and so much social divisiveness and injustice.
Finally, the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Maudling) made an interesting comment in his memoirs. He wrote:
 We had Selsdon Man and it took some time to get over that. We do not yet know the full measure of Selsdon Woman.
I find that a most interesting quotation.


The fact is that the simple arithmetic of the Opposition does not add up. If they intend to cut £5,000 million off taxation, something must come out of regional policy. It is time they made that clear.
There are some important questions that the Government must answer. The Minister should give a clear commitment that the boundaries of the assisted areas in the North-West will not be redrawn and there will be no downgrading of status for any area. I would also like a commitment that new technology will be centred in assisted areas and will not be sited in parts of the country which are already blessed with modern technology and other advantages.
I draw my hon. Friend's attention to Early-Day Motion 114, signed by 61 hon. Members from a wide variety of regions and on an all-party basis. It calls for the INMOS project to be sited in an assisted area. It is significant that the hon. Member for Gosport (Mr. Viggers) has tabled an amendment to the motion in which he calls for it to be sited according to commercial interests alone. I would argue that the siting of industry based on market forces is what has created such deprivation and difficulty in assisted areas.
In his election campaign—and I followed it most assiduously; I was practically in his footsteps—the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Page) went round his constituency arguing for free market economics, a reduction in public expenditure and less Government interference. Within a month of coming to the House, in a debate on the Thames Board Mills, he asked for £10 million worth of Government investment to preserve and improve job opportunities in Workington. He has every right to do so, we applaud him for fighting for his constituency, but it was a direct contradiction of the economic philosophy that he pursued in his election campaign.
Allowing market forces to determine the location of industry cannot continue, especially in the siting of new technologies. That is why we say that the INMOS project must go to an assisted area. My hon. Friend the Member for Newton (Mr. Evans) has done a tremendous job for the North-West in drawing attention to the need for INMOS and the associated jobs to be sited in that region. I place on record the appreciation of the

North-West group of Labour Members of the work that he has done in pressing our case.
The case for siting INMOS in our area is straightforward. We have an available work force with the necessary skills. We have workers in the North-West who are already employed in the computer and electronics industries, and we have the relevant number of graduates and the technical ability provided through our universities. The North-West is second to none in communications networks. It is riddled with motorways, and there are airports. From February we shall have a high-speed train service to London. Manchester is the commercial centre of the North-West. In many respects it is still true that what was said in Manchester today might be said in London tomorrow.
I understand that one of the arguments used in suggesting that Bristol should he the site of the INMOS facility is the attractive living conditions in the Costwolds. I am aware that there is a feeling in this country that all those of us who live north of Watford still rush around wearing sheepskins and Viking horns and live in mud huts. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Mr. Fitch) would argue that even the image of Wigan is based on a nineteenth century perception and not a modern perception. Certainly those of us from the Pennine areas, and the hon. Member for Workington, would argue that we can provide living conditions in the North or North-West which are second to none, and that the quality of life available will match anything that can be provided in the West Country or in the South-East. We have, indeed, a wide choice of locations for INMOS, and a wide selection of housing, and so on
The point that disturbs me most about the suggestion that the project should go to Bristol rather than to the North-West, is the idea that the Bristol-Bath university complex can provide the necessary technology. My hon. Friend the Member for Newton has written to the Prime Minister on this point, and I can do no better than quote his letter. He says that:
 in one particularly vital area I have done further research; that is in relation to the university personnel who will be required to provide the high technology back-up to the INMOS R amp; D facility. Evidence I have obtained suggests that the university personnel required will fall under three headings: (a) Solid state electronics, (b) Computer science, (c)


Digital electronics, with category (a) being the most important. The respective position of the Bristol-Bath university institutions and Salford-Manchester institutions is that in category (a) Bristol-Bath have no academics at all, whereas Salford-Manchester have 18. In the other two disciplines, Bristol-Bath have 14 academics, Salford-Manchester have 76. In view of this I asked my advisers to give me an indication of the time and money it would take to train the academic experts at Bristol-Bath that INMOS would require. As they have no indication of what INMOS would require at this stage, the criteria they have used is the time and money that would be required to bring Bristol-Bath up to the present standard of Salford-Manchester, i.e., 94 academics against 14. They first point out that with every academic there also has to be a trained technician and an overhead cost, building, admin, etc., and their estimate is £20,000 per academic per annum for five years: at today's prices, £100,000 per academic. 80 times that amount means £8 million. In addition, Salford-Manchester has over £2 million of scientific equipment installed. Bristol-Bath have none. So we are talking about a sum in excess of £10 million in university training, equipment and buildings, but more significantly, over a five-year period, to bring Bristol-Bath up to where Salford-Manchester already is.
That is an irrefutable case. The logic in that argument cannot be denied. The argument that this facility should be placed in the South-West is not based on the cold realities of what is needed in the regions and which region can best provide the facility. It is based on something that we in the assisted areas—not only in the North-West but the other assisted areas which have been clamouring for this project—simply cannot understand. We have only to ask what would be the effect on the general morale of a region which secured this highly prestigious project. I can tell my hon. Friend that if it came to the North-West it would have a very substantial effect indeed, apart from the jobs impact of between 2,000 and 3,000 people working in direct production.
But let me go further than that. My constituency is not generally regarded as being in the forefront of the technological revolution. We do not think of cloth and shoes as being high technology. But this morning I received a letter from Mr. Starkey, the managing director of Envair (UK) Limited, a firm which is situated in my constituency. He said:
 We note with interest the Government's intention to back the electronics industry; our particular immediate interest is in the N.E.B. project INMOS.

Our understanding at the moment is that a site for the project has not yet been selected, although the North-West of England, and more particularly Lancashire, is being seriously considered.
In addition to the vast resources that this area can offer in electronic technology, we would like to add that companies such as ourselves are in a position to offer facilities in providing the correct environment for electronic production. In fact, Envair have just completed the largest electronic clean room complex in the country at British Aerospace in Lostock, near Bolton.
That is simply an example of the spin-off that would be achieved by bringing this technology to an assisted area. The facilities for manufacturing may be sited in one or two places, but the thought of having an injection of this scale in the North-West would bring substantial benefits indeed. If the Department of Industry has been led by the nose by anyone about the siting of this project in the South-West or anywhere else, it should think again before it is too late, because hon. Members representing all the assisted areas will descend on the Department like hordes from hell and make a clamour the like of which it has not heard before if this facility goes to the Bristol area. No case can be made for its being sited at Bristol which cannot be made, and improved upon, for its being sited in our area. I leave that thought with my hon. Friend.
I turn to another problem at the other end of the manufacturing scale—the problem of small firms and particularly the provision of tailor-made advance factories to meet their needs. In recent years, a great deal has been said about small firms. The area which I represent has reason to be grateful to the Department for the number of advance factories which have been provided. In this respect, I am thinking about North-East Lancashire. But we have a problem of success, because there are literally no spare factory space or nursery units for small firms. I am talking about units of up to 10,000 sq. ft. which could be divided up or which would be suitable for an intermediate firm. But nothing is available in North-East Lancashire at present, and nothing is likely to be available in the next two years.
My hon. Friend may tell me that there is the Staplex place, or that two factories recently became empty. But they have only just appeared on the market, and


there is a question about their suitability. Certainly we have no available new factories in the area.
The local authorities in North-East Lancashire are pretty independent in their attitudes. As they say in that part of the world, they are quite prepared to put their brass where their mouths are. In fact, in 1936 Burnley built the Prestige factory with no legal authority for it whatever. It is fortunate that it did, because it now forms the basis of the most important industrial estate in North-East Lancashire.
The local authorities are asking—and I ask my hon. Friend to take this up with the Secretary of State for the Environment—for a fresh look to be taken at the way in which finance is allocated to local government for this purpose. If the local authorities in the North-East Lancashire development area spend their money, extra finance has to come from one of three sources: from the rates, but £150,000 for an advance factory in my constituency would put a couple of pence on the rates, from borrowing, or from capital receipts; they can sell something. They can borrow—and that is the obvious answer to the situation—only with the permission of the Secretary of State for the Environment in order to build factories for industrial purposes. If they borrow, it must be either in the key sector of expenditure—housing, derelict sites and highways are included in that—or in the locally determined sector. Here the Lancashire county is granted an allocation, which is then split between the local authorities by agreement. It works out at approximately £120,000 each per year. Obviously that is not enough to meet the cost of building a new factory.
The local authorities have been pressing for this expenditure to be switched to the key sector. The Secretary of State refuses on the grounds that it will increase the public sector borrowing requirement, and that the local authorities will have to accept this switch at the expense of doing something else. That does not recognise the initiative of local authorities in my area which want to be able to provide jobs. The future of some sensitive industries is uncertain, and new investment must be attracted. If the advance factory

programme cannot meet the demand, local authorities should be able to take the initiative. Their only alternative is the moneylender, at inflationary rates of interest and tight conditions, burdening the ratepayers.
I congratulate the Department of the Environment on its tackling of regional problems over the past four years. On a grand scale we need the INMOS project, which will have more than an economic effect. Less grandly, we need to provide more jobs through advance factories. If the Department cannot do the job, we should be allowed to do it ourselves.

6.32 a.m.

Mr. Richard Page: I congratulate the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Noble) on an able speech. We may differ in our approach to the regions, but our aim is the same—to get people working and give them a better standard of living.
This debate brings to mind the remarks of the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Radice) two Fridays ago and of the right hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) a week before that. A number of bodies have produced reports about the Northern region, but there is still no real prospect of growth and job opportunities. We are in danger of frantically worrying whether each region is getting its fair share, which comfortably ignores the prime reason for our failure—the failure of the main stream of our economy. Our industrial companies face a crippling bank rate and a national insurance stamp whose cost has gone up by leaps and bounds, on top of an accelerating wages bill. Nothing damages employment more. Within a month of my becoming a Member of the House, the Prime Minister announced that he would oversee the industrial strategy of which we hear so much and see so little. Practically every index shows the United Kingdom slipping further and further behind other industrial nations. In industrial terms we are struggling to reach our 1973 levels. The latest OECD figures for main economic indicators for trade and industry show that other countries have increased their industrial production three and four times more than we have. That type of loss means that we cannot do as much as we would like for our regions.


We in the North, like those in other regions, forget the poor state of the remainder of the country and we tend to regard our regional problems in isolation, not in a national context. The main chance of improvement must lie in the creation of a favourable national climate. It can only happen in an atmosphere in which a day's work receives a day's pay, in which initiative, hard work and innovation are encouraged and rewarded. Only then will we climb back to the prosperity we deserve.
Those who are on low wages—and in the North-West and the North the wages are low—feel resentment and disappointment at others who are unemployed enjoying a better life than they are. We must therefore emphasise the need to create an environment in which our industries can compete profitably, where people find it worth while to do a day's work, to accept training and to learn new skills. Our taxation package, with its direct tax cuts, must be the means to create that climate.
We also recognise that in the foreseeable future we cannot just cut off regional development grants, aids and policies. We shall maintain aid in certain highly deprived areas. We shall have a solid regional policy with the continuation of the Scottish and Welsh Development Agencies. The concern is that the Government, with their grants and schemes, are eroding the special benefit of having a black spot declared a development area. If we are not careful, we shall need an extra special development agency to improve these areas. If that happens we shall have acquired just another set of rules and an additional layer of bureaucracy to administer them.
The hon. Member for Rossendale referred to the TES. He will remember the disappointment at the way in which the REP was slashed with only a few days' notice for firms. We recognise the job that TES is doing in the current economic climate, and we shall continue it until the mainstream of the economy can provide better standards of living, when it can be gradually phased out.
There is a danger, in the North in particular, in looking for an overall solution without realising that the region divides into two. The part I am most interested

in is the industrial complex on the West coast of Cumbria. It is far smaller than that on the East, and has the feeling of being the poor relation, with all the headquarters and so much more industry being established in Newcastle. However, on the West coast of Cumbria we can see the beginning of success of regional policy. One of the tremendous strengths of this region is that it has moved from the very narrow operating base of coal and steel towards a spread of new and, in some cases, much smaller industries.
I should like to move on to the whole question of smaller businesses and how much Britain needs them, and to introduce comparisons with, say, Germany, whose smaller businesses are supposed to be over 40 per cent. greater than small businesses here, and even with Japan, a country of which one would say that the people are more attuned to working in large units, but on investigation one finds that the Japanese have a very active, thriving and growing smaller business sector. But to do that would be moving beyond the remit of this debate.
Looking at the history of the area—it is important to see just where and how an area has grown up—it can be seen that there has been a considerable mental change, almost a psychological change, towards its industrial outlook. Now, because of very positive approaches towards accepting new and changing industries, it has started, even in these depressed times, to achieve some appreciable growth. It has had the common sense to accept and welcome the incorporation of new technologies and new techniques into the area and not to try to cling to making wagon wheels for ever.
At one time, the West coast of Cumbria had the highest unemployment rate in the country, and one town in my constituency reached the staggering rate of 80 per cent. In comparison today, the national average figure is 5·8 per cent or 5·9 per cent and Workington's rate is now 7·4 per cent. There are obviously localised areas in the constituency where the rate is higher, but still it is contrasting very favourably with the rest of the Northern region.
Looking at this region and at the success of regional development policies, we find that, for example, Lloyd's List a couple of weeks ago devoted two or three pages purely and simply to this part of


the country. In it we find all the new industries mentioned. Obviously, there is Windscale, there are chemical works, and there is even the improvement to the Thames Board Mills, to which reference was made earlier. I am glad to inform the hon. Member for Rossendale that the new plant is going ahead and construction is well under way. The £10 million or so that was given to help it to get going will be paid back to the Government when it makes a profit. It was not given free, gratis and for nothing.
I partially support what the hon. Gentleman said to the Minister regarding INMOS. I shall not push for it to be located in the North-West or in the North, but I feel that it should be located in a part of the country which can provide the academic skills and the background to supply the new employment in the area that the Government choose.
New technologies should come into areas where the traditional earnings base is changing. Workington has come away from coal and it has adapted on steel. This is the only solution for our other black spots, that new industries give a chance for people to transfer from one industry to another.
In conclusion, we as a party will be maintaining a regional development policy in the highly deprived areas, and we shall be doing that until the main stream of the economy picks up and the whole of the nation goes forward economically. We do not regard all these policies as a crutch. We must regard them as a springboard to bring an area back into economic line with the rest of the country, just as is now happening already in Workington.
Regarding the statements by my hon. Friends on regional development policies, I must say, with respect to the hon. Gentleman, that he has taken a series of fragments of what has been said by Opposition Members, and out of those jigsaw pieces he has constructed his own picture of what he wants to see.

Mr. Noble: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Page: I am just about to resume my seat.

Mr. Noble: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should look at the Financial Times

of 6th June when these strands of the Conservative Party's regional policy were drawn together. The argument in that article has not been contradicted.

Mr. Page: I was about to sit down. The hon. Gentleman should wait to see our manifesto. He will then realise that we have a regional development policy. The Labour Party produced a manifesto over the weekend. I could throw the wish to nationalise every part of industry at the hon. Gentleman. We have had more Socialism in the last four years than ever before. Our industrial productivity has been as flat as a pancake. In fact it has gone down. We have 1½ million unemployed. Resentment against the Labour Party is very great in regions which at one time thought that it would look after them. Labour Members will find out how great that resentment is when the election comes.

6.46 a.m.

Mr. Michael McGuire: I want to take up one or two of the points made by the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Page). One concerns greater incentives creating the right climate for work and reduced taxation presumably increasing investment. I think that everyone would agree that we have under-invested. One of the tasks of the Labour Government has been to correct that imbalance.
The right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath)—a former leader of the Conservative Party—was one of the most eloquent advocates of "Free the people and they will respond ". I do not want to use vulgar expressions, but, paraphrasing him, he said" The blighters simply will not invest when you let profits rip and take off all the constraints. Therefore, the Government have to do it ". Some of us may complain that the Government do not do enough in certain special areas, but the fact is that the right hon. Gentleman's policy does not work either.
I agree that, whatever policy we are discussing, if our unit costs do not match, or more than match, those of our competitors, our decline will continue. I have urged my right hon. Friends, and I urge my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, to get the message across that the nation as a whole must tackle this problem. The trade unions must also take it on board. Jobs are being lost at ever-increasing speed, but increased investment


often means that fewer people are required in an industry. We must not see job opportunities being irrevocably lost. We should be provided with further opportunities for wise investment. However, if we do not get our costs down, we shall continue to decline.
I shall not repeat our international trade figures. The legacy of an empire did not do us very much good. We did not have to sell as hard as our competitors. We produced the goods and our relatives in our captive markets took them from us, while our competitors in the other industrial nations honed their skills in markets where they had to sell. They had to get their products there at the right price and overcome the imbalance in our favour. We must get our industrial costs down—and pretty sharply.
This debate is most welcome, and we are indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Noble) for initiating it. We do not often enough discuss what must be the cornerstone of the Government's industrial policy, which is regional policy. This island's history has left us with certain bad features and certain good features from our industrial past.
There are over 70 Members from the North-West. We are talking about a region with a population of more than 7 million—not of 1½ million or 2 million, but a population that probably nearly equals that of Wales and Scotland combined. The area that my hon. Friend and I have the privilege to help to represent has a proud industrial record. It was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution.
We have been left certain bad features of the Industrial Revolution. We have seen the decline of industries which sustained this country in bygone days, such as the textile industry. There is an old saying about England's bread being earned by Lancashire's thread. Such sayings have become part of our industrial folklore.
Although it was not previously as sophisticated as it is now, regional policy has a long history. Governments realised a long time ago that they had to do something in certain areas or those areas would decline even more rapidly. There-

fore, we had the use of Government resources to help prop up industries. Special benefits were given to encourage people to go into such areas. On the whole, the position would have been much worse in many areas if we had not done that. We should have had a catastrophe.
No Government would allow that. When it suits them, the Opposition say that they will deal with the problem better than we do. They say that they will be more generous. When we have debates with a bigger attendance than we have now, they vie with one another to spend more than we do. They accuse us of being miserly. But there is the contradiction that they say that they will slash several thousand millions of pounds from public spending and put the money in people's pockets. They say that they will do all kinds of wonderful things. We have never been able to fathom them out, but no doubt all these matters will emerge when we fight the General Election. I suspect that the Opposition have been fighting it for the past 12 months, and they have to think of some new things to say.
I think that our last proper full debate on regional policy was on 18th July 1977. when my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams), took part and we brought matters up to date. I initiated our last debate of this kind on the Consolidated Fund Bill in March this year. The present Government gave us the innovation of regional affairs debates in Committee upstairs. They are a poor substitute for the real debates, which should take place in the Chamber. Those debates have turned out to be something of a bear garden. Probably we are at fault because we do not select a single topic for debate. We should do this. Any hon. Member can raise any subject under the sun. The debates are not usually as fruitful as they should be.
We need at least an annual debate in the House on the working of the Government's regional policy. The hon. Member for Workington has proved how successful regional policy can be. It has resuscitated an area typical of industrial towns in the North-West. His area was heavily dependent on coal and steel, now in sharp decline. In a way, the hon. Member gave us a back-handed credit.

Mr. Richard Page: A depressed area should be given aid to bring it back to the normal level of operation of the rest of the country. It should not be given a perpetual crutch. It should receive surgery, if necessary. There should be hospital treatment, rather than condemning such an area to the geriatric ward. This is exactly what has happened in Workington. It is now coming up to levels elsewhere. It is not a question of giving praise grudgingly. The results have been achieved in Workington because both parties, when in Government, have given regional aid.

Mr. McGuire: The hon. Gentleman clarifies what I said. I remind him, as I have to remind myself sometimes when I ask for a better deal for parts of my constituency, that even the greatest form of aid is usually only an initial help. Special development areas receive a rate of grant at a certain level for plant and machinery. There is a slightly higher rate for the number of jobs brought in. The figures decline for the development areas and there is substantially less given to assisted areas. Apart from temporary employment subsidy, given in all these areas, money is not pumped in continually to existing industries. An area is not constantly given money for settled industries. Grants are given to attract new industries. Without such grants, there would not be the diversity of industry which has grown up in Workington. That area is lifting itself up—although its unemployment rate at 7·5 per cent. is still too high. Nevertheless, it is lower than rates in some areas that I represent. I rejoice that that has happened. My point is that we do not discuss these matters often enough to see whether the policy is working.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale raised the question of INMOS. The Prime Minister has put in the Library a copy of a recent speech of his on the impact of what he had been advised that this new industry will bring. My hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale made the case, and I support it—I said the same earlier today on the motion for the Adjournment—that INMOS should go to the North-West. It should go to the North-West because the North-West has been, so to speak, short-changed in so many aspects of Government grants and aid in one form or another.

When we used to debate our affairs either in the Chamber or in the Regional Affairs Committee—we have had a couple in the recent past—hon. Members would mention one topic, that of health, and so prove that we have been short-changed. All of us would give the statistics for health, showing how the North-West was being disadvantaged compared with any other region whether one was talking about infant mortality, general mortality or anything else. We were told that the Government understood that we had to make the case but we were over-egging the pudding and the figures were nothing like that.
But what do we find now? The hon. Gentleman may well have been a recipient. He should be if he has been shortchanged. There is now a new allocation to regional health authorities. Not only is the North-West given the appropriate allocation for regional health authorities, but it is also given a special allocation to make up for the now acknowledged substantial underpayments in bygone years. In other words, we were right. I think that this has deprived my constituents, as it happens—I said this earlier today and I do not want to raise it any more—of a hospital which was planned a long time ago for the new town of Skelmersdale. The truth is that we have been shortchanged.
The number of Government jobs opens up another avenue for examination. We are talking about a region with over 7 million people. The number of Government office jobs and other jobs paid for by the Government shows again that we have been unfairly treated. The North-West has fared badly compared with other regions. If we get all that the Government are supposed to transfer to us under the Hardman report—if we get all that is promised plus the one or two things which are still the subject of debate—we shall have about 140 jobs per 100,000 of population. That is about the lowest figure one can bring the statistics down to to make any sense.
How will that compare with Wales, for example? I do not have the figures for Scotland in my mind, but Scotland does less well than Wales, with about 400-plus jobs per 100,000 of population compared to our 140 in the North-West.


Wales has so far about 640 jobs per 10,000 of population.
The North-West has been in this bad position with industries which have declined substantially. The cotton industry has gone right down. It employed 1 million people at one time. My hon. Friend knows these figures better than I do. What are we at now—about 70,000 in total?

Mr. Noble: I thank my hon. Friend for inviting me to answer his question. I think that the present figure is about 60,000 in the cotton and allied sectors.

Mr. McGuire: Yes, 60,000 or 70,000. So we have come down substantially. The mining industry has declined, too. As an ex-miner I know the figures. We used to have about 100,000 miners when the Lancashire coalfield was in its days of pomp, and now we are down to about 12,000.
We used to have a steel industry. We hear talk about the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. We have lost our only steel-making plant. I may add that it was closed without a lot of fuss and bother, and perhaps we should have made a bit more fuss and bother. Members representing North-West constituencies are often accused of not making enough fuss and bother compared with Members from other areas. I wish that we had a nationalist party in the North-West. We might do a bit better if we had. In that industrial heartland, still one of our great industrial areas, we have no steel-making capacity. It has been taken from us under the closure programme of the British Steel Corporation.
We have fared badly in all these respects. The Merseyside-Manchester conurbation has the worst statistics for almost anything one cares to name—infant mortality, general mortality and illness, especially respiratory illness such as bronchitis. We have the lowest number of children qualifying to go on to higher education and staying on in higher education. It is the same with housing, judged by the yardstick to describe bad housing. So the North-West has done pretty badly.
The North-West has a good case for more help, but it has been steadily ignored, for one main reason: we have paid the political Danegeld here. We have

put it into certain parts of the country—Wales and Scotland in particular and, to some extent, the North-East because it is so close to Scotland and had to be given a sweetener to soften the blow and make the medicine that the Welsh and the Scots got not seem quite so beneficial to them. The North-West has suffered because of the political Danegeld.
I come back to the question of the INMOS issue. There is no doubt that the North-West has all the infrastructure for sustaining this industry that one can find anywhere in the country. The universities are there. There is the technical expertise, which many of the workers take in with the mother's milk. They have a long tradition in this kind of mechanical expertise. They would soon acquire whatever skills were needed for this new industry. I can think of no other region that could put in a better claim for INMOS.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale mentioned our motorway system. Those who live near the motorways are not so proud, but the system is probably better in our area than anywhere else in the country. Our communications by land, sea and air cannot be bettered anywhere in the country, and I doubt whether they can be equalled. We have the technical and intellectual expertise which can sustain and nourish this industry.
I believe that there is an overwhelming case for this new industry to go to the North-West, but I am sufficient of a national strategist to say that the siting of the project will be a real test of the Government's commitment to a genuine regional policy. We know the process of leaking. Something is put out, and no one takes any notice. It is almost like subliminal advertising in a way. It comes out again, and then again, and gradually it becomes like a series of body punches —one absorbs them and each weakens one a bit. Then one says "Well, we were told that it was going to go there ", even though there has been no Government announcement. No decision has been announced, but that is vastly different from saying that no decision has yet been made.
My hon. Friend said that this project is to go to the Bristol area. He said that it had been suggested that the beauties of the Cotswolds would be a determining factor. I agree with him entirely about


the joys and beauties of Lancashire. We can offer places like the Lake District, one of the gems and joys of England, and we have plenty of other places where it is very comfortable to live.
I said that Lancashire was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, but it would be wrong to give the impression that it is an area of slag heaps and dereliction generally. There are some beautiful spots in Lancashire within easy reach of areas in which this project could be sited—the Merseyside area, which could make a substantial claim for it, the Manchester area or the Lancaster area. In whichever part of the North-West this project was sited, there would be lovely sites well within the reach of those who want to live in pleasant surroundings. I do not condemn people who want to live in the pleasantest of places—that is what I should want to do—but the Cotswolds cannot have a claim which overrides the claims of Lancashire or the North-West.
If the project is sited in the Bristol area, it will make a mockery of the Government's pretence about regional policy. It will be an indication that once again we are to pay the political Danegeld, because the Government cannot put the project in Wales. Every Welsh Member of Parliament, whatever his political complexion, will make a case for this project to go to Wales. I think that the Government will say "We have done very well by Wales ", and short of putting it there they will put it in the nearest possible place to Wales. I could be wrong, and I hope that when my hon. Friend replies to the debate he will tell us that no decision has as yet been made. We know that none has been announced.
I pay tribute, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale, to the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Newton (Mr. Evans), who has drawn the attention of the Government, and our attention, too, to the needs and claims of the North-West. I hope that when the Minister replies to the debate he will tell me that my fears are totally unfounded, that the strongest representations that the Government have received so far have come from the North-West, and that he fully takes on board the fact that to site this project outside any area that has assisted status of one form or another—

if the intended area has any status it must be of the lowest form—would be a contradiction of any Government regional policy.
I must take this opportunity to tackle my hon. Friend. I said that we had had two debates on regional policy. One was initiated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West on 18th July 1977. The other was initiated by myself on 20th March of this year, and that was largely about why we needed to look afresh at what I call the tactics within the regional strategy and to consider the claims of my constituency—that is, that part which is outside the Skelmersdale new town area. Skelmersdale new town enjoys the highest form of grant aid, and the only plea that I constantly make—apart from my plea for the new hospital there and the need to complete the grand design for Skelmersdale, because it would be nonsense not to give us the planned new hospital—is that, although it enjoys the highest form of grant, the area has suffered many body blows, particularly 18 months ago. We had the closure of the Thorn colour television tube factory, followed by the closure of the Courtaulds factory with the permanent loss of 2,300 jobs. Those empty factories are a constant and grim reminder of the lost jobs.
Regional aid is a once-and-for-all operation which attracts new industries which would not otherwise move to an area. We have had some body blows in "Skem ", but we have also had some quiet successes and we would have more if the Government would help a little more. Companies now settled in Skelmersdale are usually part of a larger, national empire, and when their boards consider expansion, "Skem" has to compete on almost level terms with other areas. It would help if companies qualified for extra grants if they expanded in Skelmersdale. I have suggested that to Ministers but, although they have not poured cold water on it, the idea has not been favourably received.
Our success stories could be multiplied if firms that expanded their existing factories in "Skem" qualified for additional aid, even though they may have exhausted their original grants. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us that assurance.
The rest of my constituency is in the Wigan travel-to-work area, and my hon. Friends the Members for Wigan (Mr. Fitch), Newton and Westhoughton (Mr. Stott) and I have constantly pressed the Government in deputations, debates and questions to reconsider the claims of Wigan to be granted at least development area status. Its unemployment rate is 8·5 per cent.—one of the highest in any intermediate area. A total of 144 areas have a lower rate yet enjoy a higher form of grant aid. That cannot be fair.
Wigan has a continuing high rate of unemployment and cannot offer the same grant aid as other areas. It is trying to solve its problems with one hand tied behind its back. It is the Government's duty to look at the adjustments that must be necessary in such circumstances.

7.20 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Industry (Mr. Les Huckfield): The House is indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Noble) for giving us the opportunity to have another discussion on regional policy and industrial location—although it is not the most sparkling time of day.
My hon. Friend has obviously done much research. He used a succession of facts and figures which showed that. Both he and my hon. Friend the Member for Ince (Mr. McGuire) presented good cases. I hesitate to say that they presented moderate arguments. They have gone to much trouble and presented a comprehensive case. I shall reply as fully as possible. I also wish to reply to the confused performance of the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Page). After 15 minutes I was unable to decide whether he wanted a regional policy.
Any regional policy operated by a Labour Government must give the highest priority to the areas with the highest and most persistent unemployment, particularly to those with weak industrial structures. That is why this Government will continue to pursue a policy which discriminates in favour of such areas. I am sure that my hon. Friends recognise the problems of areas such as Merseyside, which has an 11·5 per cent. rate of unemployment. A total of 86,685 people are without jobs in the area. The unemployment rate there is

above the average of 7·2 per cent. for the North-West as a whole—although that is high enough. I am sure that my hon. Friends realise the basic priorities to which the Government must adhere.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ince talked about paying the Danegeld. I understand what he means in political terms. The unemployment rate in the Northern region is 8·6 per cent. In Wales the unemployment rate is 8·3 per cent. and in Scotland it is 7·8 per cent. Those are higher percentages than the percentage in his area. There might be resentment that Scotland, Wales and other regions have been given greater priority, but those areas have the highest unemployment figures. In the Rossendale travel-to-work area unemployment is 4·8 per cent. That is one of the lowest rates in the North-West region.

Mr. Noble: That figure, although correct, is disguised because the Government have provided temporary employment subsidies on a massive scale to maintain the textile and footwear industries in the area. Without Government action, the rate of unemployment would be between 15 per cent. and 20 per cent.

Mr. Huckfield: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the tribute that he has paid to the Government. It is important to keep people in secure jobs.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ince referred to development area status for Wigan. The unemployment rate in that area is 8·5 per cent. and the Government accept that Wigan has a serious problem.
Our basic regional instrument must be industrial development certificates. I assure my hon. Friends that we administer the policy with flexibility and sympathy. We try to identify mobile industrial projects which we think can be steered to assisted areas. We have stressed continually that we do not want firms to be inhibited from applying. We want them to apply, and basically that is what is happening. One of the difficulties is that in an economic trough we do not have that many mobile industrial projects coming forward. Although we administer the policy as sympathetically as possible, the basic national difficulty is having too few industrial projects coming forward that may be located in


the assisted areas that my hon. Friends represent.
I can reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale that we fully understand the need for continuity and for certainty in the administration of our policy. It would not be conducive to industrialists investing and it would not give them confidence and a feeling of security if they felt that the policy might be subjected to continuous changes. We fully understand and take on board the need to create a climate of confidence and certainty. That is why the Government do not propose to have continuous changes in regional boundaries.
We have a lack of mobile projects, but a further difficulty is that we are going through one of the worst depressions since the 1930s. It is a depression that compounds some serious structural unemployment problems. Although a regional policy could perhaps cope with location of industry in a normal economic period, when that series of problems is overlaid by a series of structural problems we have to take additional measures.
The assisted areas already cover about 40 per cent. of the working population and 65 per cent. of the land area. The more extensive we make the coverage, the less effective will regional policy become. That tends to water down the effects on existing categories and existing priorities.

Mr. Michael McGuire: I consider that argument to be a fallacy. As I understand it, the purpose of regional policy is to confer assistance on areas that would be disadvantaged if they did not have it as they would not be able to attract industry because they are on the extremities of various areas and not in the favoured areas. If Wigan, for example, received the higher form of grant aid, that would mean that it would be better able to compete with its neighbours. Its needs are as great—they may be greater —as some of the areas that already enjoy the higher grant aid. It is not as if the Government have a certain amount of money and that they plaster it around. The money may be exhausted, but an area will still enjoy the advantage of regional aid because new industries will have been attracted. The thinning of the jam argument is a fallacy.

Mr. Huckfield: I understand the pleadings of my hon. Friend. He makes his case well. I hope that he will take cognisance of the fact that within intermediate status areas there are areas with higher unemployment problems and percentages than the area that he represents. Rhyl, for example, has a current unemployment rate of 14·1 per cent. The rate at Bridlington is 10·3 per cent. It is 9·9 per cent. at Mexborough. I hope that my hon. Friend will recognise that there are intermediate areas with a prior claim in unemployment terms to that of the area represented by my hon. Friend.

Mr, Michael McGuire: I accept that.

Mr. Huckfield: I reinforce what I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale. Frequent changes in boundaries and status do not make for continuity and do not make for the confidence that we have to give to investors.

Mr. Noble: So we are not going to have any: is that what my hon. Friend is saying?

Mr. Huckfield: Until the general review of regional policy and a general review of the boundaries take place—we do not have any plans for that—we do not intend to make frequent and regular changes. That is because we do not feel that changes are conducive to the continuity of investment.
I assure my hon. Friends that the Secretary of State, in the designation of assisted areas, is required by the criteria to have regard to
 all the circumstances, actual and expected, including the state of employment and unemployment. population changes, migration and the objectives of regional policies.
My right hon. Friend is bound to take those points into his calculations. But we must act in a situation in which unemployment is the most useful and most convenient indicator of the problems of areas such as those we are discussing.
Within the general assisted area of the North-West—and it all has assisted area status of one sort or another— there are the partnership areas. Of the eight partnership areas, four are in assisted areas—Glasgow, Liverpool, Salford and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Of the 42 designated districts, 33 are in assisted areas. We have calculated that policy so that assisted areas should maintain their priority.
I reaffirm as strongly as possible that we want to give priority to assisted areas, especially to the special development areas such as Merseyside and Skelmersdale. The best guarantee of continuity of employment for my hon. Friend's constituents is continuity and consistency of the regional policy.

Mr. Richard Page: Does the Minister really feel that with 1,500,000 unemployed in this country he is being progressive enough? We have an unemployment rate of 7.4 per cent. in Workington. Under the Conservatives, it was down to 5 per cent.

Mr. Huckfield: The hon. Member can put the case to me and I shall listen to him sympathetically. I suggest that he also puts it to the "gang of four" on his own Front Bench, because they are telling a completely different story.
As I thought, reference has been made to INMOS. I realise that there is an early-day motion on the subject. INMOS has engaged consultants to make a detailed study of possible locations in the various areas. The precise location is for the company and the NEB, and it would be inappropriate for me to identify one possible location or another before the study has been made. Obviously the NEB has guidelines under which it must operate, and those guidelines require it to take account of the needs of the assisted areas. I assure my hon. Friends that this subject has been fully discussed between the NEB and the Department of Industry. Obviously a statement will need to be made soon, but as yet no decision has been taken and consideration is still being given.
I know that there have been all kinds of press reports—there usually are in situations of this kind—but the great majority of the jobs involved in the total project will be in production units. About 4,000 new jobs are involved there. Another 50 or so jobs in the technology centre will be created by the end of next year. But I emphasise that decisions have not yet been taken in these matters. Obviously the NEB must consider them seriously.
Of the other agencies that can help the North-West, there has been a great deal of disappointment with the perform-

ance of the National Enterprise Board in the North-West. I hope that the North-West, like other regions, will benefit from the total investments that the NEB has made—in Rolls-Royce, British Leyland and Ferranti, which is one of the Board's success stories.
I turn to regional selective financial assistance. Some 1,084 projects in the North-West have attracted offers of assistance of nearly £113 million towards projects, the total costs of which have been more than £881 million. That is in the North-West region alone. It is estimated that there will be the creation of more than 57,000 new jobs and the safeguarding of a further 54,000 jobs.
On Merseyside, nearly £58 million has been offered towards projects costing £354 million, which is expected to create 21,200 new jobs and to safeguard another 24,600.
In Greater Manchester, 397 offers totalling £32 million have been made towards projects costing £256 million, with 17,600 new jobs in prospect and 18,000 jobs safeguarded.
Those are significant and impressive figures, and I am grateful to my hon. Friends for the tributes they have paid regarding the effect of these figures in their regions.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale referred to advance factories. I can tell him—he probably knows the figures already—that 140,000 square metres of advance factory space have been authorised in the North-West since 1974, of which 90,000 square metres have been on Merseyside and 11,000 square metres in North-East Lancashire. Advance factories totalling 74,000 square metres have already been built, and another 51,000 square metres of factory space are at present under construction.
I am unable, unfortunately, to give my hon. Friend exact figures about how much of that would be precisely in his area. I want to have a look at the point he made about giving local authorities more flexibility on this aspect. I will discuss this with my right hon. Friend, because my hon. Friend made a very coherent case. I hope that my hon. Friend will recognise that district councils have been given more flexibility in the administration of local industrial development certificate ponicy, because, up to a total of


60,000 sq. ft., local authorities—now district councils—have been given a new amount of flexibility which I hope they will use wisely. I will certainly take note of the point that my hon. Friend has made.
My hon. Friend also referred to grants from the European Regional Development Fund.

Mr. Noble: No—the European Investment Bank.

Mr. Huckfield: Perhaps I may just complete the total picture. My hon. Friend referred to funds from the EEC, and I can tell him that European regional development funds have contributed £35 million towards projects to develop industry and infrastructure in the region.
My hon. Friend referred to the European Investment Bank, and I know that he has put down some Questions which I shall be answering very shortly, but I can tell him—if I may anticipate my remarks slightly—that we are prepared exceptionally to consider employment-creating projects in intermediate areas and projects which safeguard employment throughout the assisted areas. One loan under the EIB agency loan scheme has already been approved for a project in an intermediate area, and others also in intermediate areas are under consideration. That is an advance warning of what my hon. Friend will get in my more fulsome answers when they arrive, and I hope he will recognise that we are treating his point with the utmost sympathy.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ince mentioned the topic of dispersal. He knows that the region will receive nearly 5,400 posts under the Hardman report. I hope that both my hon. Friends will take note that so far, under the administration of our industrial development certificate policy, nearly 770 industrial development certificates have been issued in the North-West for projects covering 35·7 million sq. ft. This is expected to give rise to 29,000 new jobs.
The total of assistance in industrial development certificates, regional selective financial assistance, and the other measures to which I have just referred, such as the European Regional Development Fund, and the section 8 measures, to

which I want to refer, constitute a rather significant package which, as I have said before, has kept unemployment in the North-West, though higher than in the South-East and the West Midlands, certainly lower than it is in the North, in Wales and in Scotland.
I want to make a brief reference to small firms, which are now my responsibility within the Department of Industry. Further measures are under consideration as part of a study being conducted by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. The work of the Wilson committee and the Roll committee is also relevant here.
We operate small firms information services nationally. In fact, I was in Manchester only yesterday doing part of my small firms information service work. The small firms employment subsidy has already led to some 7,500 workers being taken on in small firms in the North-West region, so again I should like to say that the North-West is benefiting from our small firms policy.
I should like briefly to give the section 8 Industry Act figures for selective assistance. I can tell my hon. Friend that 309 projects in the North-West, costing almost £178 million, have been offered assistance amounting to £30 million under this section. We believe that temporary employment subsidy and similar measures in the North-West region have assisted a total of more than 209,000 workers. I recognise the significant contribution which TES has made in the textile, clothing and footwear sectors, with which the region represented by my hon. Friends is fairly replete. Of course, they have specifically benefited from these special temporary employment measures. Consultation is going ahead to introduce legislation to improve arrangements for the compensation of workers on short-time working. Such legislation was mentioned in the Gracious Speech. The consultations are continuing. Of course, from 1st January 1979, the small firms employment subsidy will be available throughout the North-West region.
Obviously, we place great emphasis on the special development areas in the North-West, areas such as Skelmersdale, Merseyside and the partnership areas. That is why under the urban programme


some £30 million is going to the partnership areas of Liverpool, Manchester and Salford.
Apart from that, my hon. Friend referred to a North-West development authority. This is not the first time that this question has cropped up. However, I must tell him— and I say it as a member of the national executive committee of the Labour Party —that there is a great deal of dissension within our party about elected democratic regional authorities and how we should go forward in that regard. He talked about investment decisions being taken regionally and more democratically. I hope he will realise that wherever he goes in regions of our party, and whenever he goes to different regions, there is a great deal of different feeling.
I hope that my hon. Friend will also take cognisance of the fact that, if the North-East and North-West had their own development authorities, then, as surely as night follows day, Yorkshire and Humberside, the South-West, the Midlands and the South-East would want theirs. My hon. Friend should recognise that there is no automatic salvation in setting up development agencies, although I recognise that these policies have been advocated from time to time.
I am glad that the hon. Member for Workington paid eloquent testimony to the fact that our regional policies have had the effect of diversifying the base, and certainly strengthening the industrial base, in both the North and North-West for when the upturn comes. With the communications links of the M6 and the electric rail services which the North-West enjoys, I should like to think that, as a result of the overall picture of regional policies, the North-West has considerably benefited.
I want to say a brief word about textiles. Because of the very tough line taken in the GATT multi-fibre arrangement talks, virtually all of our imports from low-cost sources are subject to actual or potential restraint. I think that we have negotiated an arrangement which is a great improvement on the one which existed before, and we certainly hope for a substantial fall in the rate of increase in imports.
In addition, from March 1974 until June this year, under section 8 of the Industry Act, we offered about £20·5 million in assistance to firms in the textile industry, and a further £23·5 million under section 7 to firms in assisted areas. We estimate that this latter assistance will create about 13,000 jobs and safeguard a further 13,200 jobs. In addition, textile firms undertaking investment in assisted areas have qualified for the payment of about £44 million in regional development grants.
That is a fairly comprehensive package under sections 7 and 8 of the Industry Act to assist the textile industry. The wool textile schemes, the scheme for the clothing industry, and the textile machinery scheme have brought to firms in the North-West assistance of about £8.7 million. Under section 7 of the Industry Act, the textiles and clothing industry in the North-West has received £18 million in assistance towards projects costing £151 million. We estimate that that assistance will safeguard 9,300 jobs and create 11,500 more. The North-West has benefited from the total package of assistance, although I recognise the case made by my hon. Friends.
I am grateful for the tribute by the hon. Member for Workington, in a confused speech, to the success of our regional policy in the North. His pleas on behalf of Workington should be addressed first to his own Front Bench. At Question Time after Question Time his party has advocated the dismantling of regional policy. We are worried by the articles in the Financial Times and the steady drip, drip of propaganda by the hon. Members for Kingston upon Thames (Mr. Lamont) and Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke). It is hard to know what they mean, since they say different things on different days from different Benches.
According to the Financial Times— I am sorry that that is our main source of information—Opposition Members want to cut regional development grants by between £200 million and £300 million a year. In "The Right Approach ", they talk of raising the limit for industrial development certificates to 30,000 to 40,000 sq ft. One wonders how much of a regional policy will be left. The hon. Members' plea for the restoration of freedom of enterprise is not borne out by the events of 1971ဣ74, when precisely that


policy was carried out—and when the then Prime Minister had to plead with the Institute of Directors because companies still were not investing. Those policies benefit the asset strippers and office block speculators—certainly not the people in the constituency of the hon. Member for Workington.

Mr. Richard Page: I agree that the money supply was inflated then, but since 1974 it has been running at high levels. Under the Minister's fantastic policies, production has yet to equal that of the three-day week and 1½ million are unemployed, with hundreds of thousands hidden in job creation schemes. With all the jobs created and saved, why is not unemployment down to 600,000?

Mr. Huckfield: The hon. Gentleman has not been a Member for long and will not be one much longer, but under the Conservative Government increases in the money supply were between 25 per cent. and 30 per cent. annually, deliberately stoked up, compared with 7 per cent., 10 per cent. and 12 per cent. under this Government. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that it can all be explained by increases in the velocity of circulation, he has not seen the M3 figures published recently. The biggest increases in the supply of money were created as a result of a deliberate policy by the Tory Government because they thought that that was the way to get the economy moving. All that it gave us in the end was 27 per cent. inflation.
Let us consider the Conservative quotations and promises, and the speeches of the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph). He said:
 In aggregate, we believe that these subsidies… do more harm than good… We believe that subsidies and grants and, indeed, the industrial strategy distract management and workers…"—[Official Report, 4th July 1978; Vol. 952, c. 255–56.]
I hope that the hon. Member for Workington will say that to firms in his constituency which receive grants and subsidies. I hope that the people of Workington will read very carefully what the hon. Gentleman said this morning.
Finally, I am grateful to my hon. Friends for the comprehensive and detailed case that they have made. I take to heart what my hon. Friend the Member for Ince said about making our unit costs and performance more competitive. That

is the key. If our industrial strategy is to succeed, and if we are to succeed in export markets, it is the competitiveness, performance and unit costs upon which we should concentrate. He made a significant point there. I can reassure my hon. Friends that we shall look into the points they have made. I hope that they realise, however, that without the Government's policies disaster could have befallen the North-West. Our policies have achieved success, although we still have a long way to go.

CONCESSIONARY FARE SCHEMES

7.52 a.m.

Mr. Julian Ridsdale: I am glad to have this debate but I am sorry that the Under-Secretary has had to reply to two debates in the early hours of the morning. Our debate, however, underlines our strong feelings about what the Secretary of State has said about Conservative councils with low rateable values.
The elderly people who live in rural areas are in despair about the increases in bus fares, and they envy those who live in areas of high rateable value and are able to enjoy good concessionary fare schemes. The present system makes it difficult for areas of low rateable values to have reasonable schemes without a big increase in rates, which in these inflationary times hits hardest the retired and those on small incomes.
The Secretary of State is completely unaware of that, in spite of what we have said on the subject. He is telling the councils with low rateable values to make such increases when he says that they should introduce better schemes. He said:
 It is a local disgrace that a number of authorities do not provide schemes… for old people and the disabled.—[Official Report, 29th November 1978; Vol. 959, c. 425.]
It is a disgrace that the right hon. Gentleman has completely failed to understand the position of the authorities which have low rateable values and which find it difficult to introduce such schemes as he has suggested.
Does the Secretary of State realise that the product of a penny rate in these areas is so different from the product in areas


which give free travel for old-age pensioners? For example, the product of a penny rate in the Maldon district is about £75,000. For the Tendring district in my constituency it is £180,000. I imagine it is not so different from that in the Western Isles and in areas represented by my hon. Friends who signed the early-day motion which I tabled on 30th November.
There is an amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr), who has done such a lot recently in pressing the Government to give fairer treatment on concessionary fares to elderly persons and to stop the unfair treatment as between one area and another which I have mentioned in the early-day motion. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. McCrindle) will underline that when he speaks, because his constituency is so near to others in which free concessionary fare schemes are operated. Indeed, it is the different operations of one area and another so close together which mark a very great criticism of the present policy being followed by the Under-Secretary.
With no increase in the rate support grant and, indeed, with having to make up for some cut-backs recently, to introduce even a half-fare scheme would entail a large increase in rates in these low rateable value areas. That is particularly so in my constituency in the Tendring district. To introduce a half-fare scheme would mean a gross increase of 5p in the pound in rates, although the subsidy given by the Government would help to a degree. But, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough says in his amendment, the Government stand to give only one-third of that back in the help that they are giving.
What a difference there is between the London area, where the product of a penny rate is £19 million—it is no wonder that London and the rich areas can afford the free concessionary fares—and in particular Essex, where we are struggling to find a suitable scheme to help people. Is it any wonder that, as the White Paper of June 1977 pointed out, of the then £80 million spent on concessionary fares 70 per cent. was spent in Greater London and the metropolitan areas, where only 38 per cent. of pensioners live?
Added to these unfairnesses we have the excellent fare schemes operated by British Rail for senior citizens. Elderly people simply do not understand why, if British Rail can operate such schemes, the National Bus Company cannot do so. How is it that EEC countries other than ourselves can enjoy concessionary fares for the elderly whilst we are still lagging behind? In the Republic of Ireland, anyone over the age of 67 can travel free anywhere in the country by rail or bus. In Northern Ireland there is half-price travel for people over 65. All other EEC countries provide reduced fares or free travel by rail or bus. We are lagging very much behind.
What, then, is the present position? I feel bound to comment that to me the present attitude of the Secretary of State is very hypocritical: "You do as I say, but I shall not help you to do it ". That seems to be his policy and his attitude. However, I welcome his intention to see that local authorities can work half-fare off-peak schemes, as the Under-Secretary stated to me in the letter he wrote to me on 5th December, in which he said:
 We are advocating half-fare schemes as the national minimum standard.
One certainly welcomes that, but I earnestly ask the Under-Secretary to see how this can be achieved in areas of low rateable value such as I have described. I hope that he will explain this quite clearly in his reply, because this is why I am attacking the Secretary of State and the Government for their hypocritical attitude to areas of low rateable value. It is a two-pronged attack.
Is not the way out of this dilemma to make counties responsible rather than districts for these schemes? After all, Essex gets a transport supplementary grant of 70 per cent. on revenue supplied for loss-making bus services. At present, this works out at about £1 ¼ million to £1½ million a year. Cannot the transport grant for concessionary fares go to counties rather than to districts? Why cannot we make counties responsible for the concessionary fares rather than the districts, which are finding it impossible, because of the cut-back in the rate support grant and because of inflation, to put an extra burden on house owners who are retired? I am sure that this would be a great help to the poorer districts, and it would enable those enjoying better schemes at least to


help the areas of low rateable value. If that could be done, it would be constructive without putting an extra burden on the central Government.
Something must be done. I press the Secretary of State to be more understanding and constructive. I am sure that along these lines we might be able to help many deserving people who have served their country well. If no progress can be made, we must look to the central Government for help for areas of low rateable value with such high numbers of retired people.
I want to act responsibly. I do not ask for increased Government spending unless it is absolutely necessary as a fallback position. That is why I ask the Minister to consider my suggestion about responsibility for concessionary fares being on counties rather than districts. More half-fare schemes could mean a cutback in the transport supplementary grant as buses would be used more frequently. Is it not logical that the authority receiving and being responsible for the transport supplementary grant should be responsible for concessionary fares as well? We must make it possible for more schemes to be introduced. It seems logical for this to be done by counties. If that cannot be done, we must look to the central Government for help for areas of low rateable value. It is a position of despair for the elderly in those areas.
We now face an alteration in taxation policy, which will put an extra burden on buses. I have not yet seen a reply to a Question which I tabled asking what the increase in bus fares will be because of the alteration in taxation policy. Then we have the usual inflation on top of past inflation. There has been no help for people who have to face vast increases in bus fares in these areas. An increase of 10 per cent. in fares is possible shortly. The position is acute for people living in areas of low rateable value.
Time is short for something to be done. I hope that it will be possible for counties to deal with this matter. As a last resort, the Government must play their part. I hope that concessionary fares can be introduced not with a vast increase in Government spending but in a human way. I also hope that when the Secre-

tary of State makes speeches in future or comes to the Dispatch Box he will show more understanding for areas of low rateable value.

8.3 a.m.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this subject. I was somewhat astonished by the tone of the hon. Member for Harwich (Mr. Ridsdale) regarding public expenditure, because, with his colleagues on the Opposition Front Bench, he usually takes a rigid line. I assume that, with the General Election getting nearer, the Tories, concentrating their gaze on winning it, have come to the conclusion that this nonsense about public expenditure cuts and refusing to provide services is not going down too well with old-age pensioners.

Mr. Ridsdale: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will one day learn to be pragmatic, not doctrinaire, because that is where success in Government lies.

Mr. Skinner: Unlike the hon. Gentleman, I have always believed in concessionary fares for old-age pensioners. I do not allow myself to be caught in the trap of arguing against public expenditure, because it sounds popular for about three years, and then, with an election round the corner, consult my electorate and find that they think that this is a great idea and that I should support it. The Tories who are now signing these motions are hypocrites, unless they explain to the Leader of the Opposition why they have changed their views. They should ask the right hon. Lady "At next Prime Minister's Question Time, instead of shouting and bawling, why don't you tell him ' I have a party which has come to the conclusion that it would be wise to have a mandatory policy of free travel for all old-age pensioners '? "
The hon. Gentleman wants only half fares, and I do not think he wants a mandatory policy. He should be telling his leader that she should get that message across to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. It is no good attacking my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Transport. I can do that, and I do. During his period in office my lion. Friend has been trying to coax recalcitrant authorities, mainly Tory authorities, to introduce a scheme. I believe that the last figures showed 41 local authorities refusing to implement any scheme. Nearly


all of them are controlled by the Tories or are an amalgam of what are known as independents, who in reality turn out to be Tories. We used to have a few in my area, and there still are a few.
The hon. Gentleman must convince his own leader and the guru for Leeds, the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph). The right hon. Gentleman will not fall for this one—spending Government money on old-age pensioners' concessionary fares. The hon. Gentleman has some work to do there instead of attacking my hon. Friend, who is trying to introduce such a scheme.
The hon. Gentleman must get the message across to the new Shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen), because he is not in favour of all these things. We are told that he has been brought into the Shadow Cabinet in order to resist any further moves towards public expenditure.
We are getting near an election. The Tories want to try to give the impression to their local pensioners that "We're fighting for this, and we're fighting for that ". It is time they started influencing their own side. All the Tory Members should start a campaign, visiting the Tory authorities which refuse to introduce any scheme and saying" We have come to demand that you spend more money."
The hon. Gentleman was not very clear, but he seems to want the introduction of concessionary fares without Government spending. It appears from his references to rate support grant that he does not want the ratepayers to be burdened with the cost. Then he says that there should be extra Government spending only where absolutely necessary. He must understand that if a scheme is introduced along the lines that I want, or even along the lines that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary wants, it will cost taxpayers' and ratepayers' money. It is a redistribution of wealth towards the most deserving. I was going to say that it would be exactly in line with our Labour manifesto, which has not been fully implemented yet. Certainly it is near enough going that way, because most of those who would benefit are those who really need the assistance.
There are now 9 million old-age pensioners and the number is growing all the time. Therefore, it is a very sensible

exercise. Unlike the hon. Gentleman, I am telling my hon. Friend that I think it is time we took the matter on board to an even greater extent and made sure that local authorities had to introduce such a scheme.
For the life of me, I cannot see the Tories in Derbyshire introducing schemes, even if they had the powers which the hon. Gentleman rightly wants to give them. In their manifesto two years ago, the Derbyshire county council Tories said that they would cut all the bus subsidies and introduce a scheme to get the local do-gooders—the vicar and others—to use their cars for late-night transport. Instead of having bus stops, they would have stops for the cars. All the old people would be shovelled into the cars and taken to the main roads where the main buses run. That is their scheme.
The hon. Gentleman is suggesting that that gang of Tories on the Derbyshire county council would, if suddenly given the opportunity by my hon. Friend, start using the money. Of course they would not. The only reason why we have some concessions in Bolsover and North-East Derbyshire generally is that a system of concessionary fares using tokens was introduced. This is not satisfactory and needs to be improved. For the life of me, I cannot see Derbyshire county council, which from time to time engages in witch hunts instead of doing its proper job, introducing a free scheme, even if it had the chance.
I want my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to adjust his thinking a little. I want him to take another step forward. The Labour Party is the only party to have done anything on this issue throughout the ages. In 1965, long before I came here, I was marching in the streets for the Right-wing Labour Ministers then in power. They have not changed much. When I was doing that, I remember the Labour Government introducing a scheme to allow—to permit—local authorities to introduce schemes. The first one was somewhere in the North—in Newcastle, I believe.
The Tory Government in 1970–74 did nothing about this subject. The people must realise that progress will not come about because a Tory attacks my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary. It will be because I, who am helping to draw up the


Labour Party manifesto for the next election, will try to ensure—not" ensure "; that is too broad a step—that such a free scheme is introduced.
I will tell the House what we did last night. I do not believe in leaking these things to the press ananymously. I believe in saying them loud and clear. I can tell my hon. Friend the latest news on this front. If the NEC and the clause 5 meeting agree with my proposal of last night, instead of half fares there will be free concessionary fares for old-age pensioners and for schoolchildren travelling to and from school. That will be the proposal in the manifesto. It was agreed after my intervention last night. This proposal has a redistributive effect.

Mr. Ridsdale: What would be the cost to the taxpayer for such a scheme as that?

Mr. Skinner: The cost to the taxpayer would not be as great as, let us say, it cost to bail out the Crown Agents. It would not be as great as it was to bail out the sleazy secondary banks, which had to receive taxpayers' money from the Bank of England. It will not cost much—

Mr. Ridsdale: How much?

Mr. Skinner: Now we are getting the real Tory imagine revealing itself once again. A few moments ago the hon. Gentleman was saying "Introduce this scheme. Please do it for my area. Never mind about the money. It does not mean all that much." The moment I say something that is more sensible and more appropriate to the occasion and suggest free fares for all old-age pensioners, the hon. Gentleman asks how much it will cost.
The Greater London Council operates a free fares scheme. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has ever gone round to Mr. Horace Cutler and asked how much the scheme was costing the Tories on the GLC. The Tories there wanted to drap the scheme but they found that it would be better to leave such a proposal out of the manifesto when it got near to an election, otherwise they would not have gained control. That scheme was introduced by the Labour Party.
The hon. Gentleman is mixed up again. Inside, the inner Tory is asking "How

much?" The hon. Gentleman has the cheek to say that after all his pleading and attacking my hon. Friend a few moments ago.

Mr. Ridsdale: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will read my speech. He will see that I said I wished to be responsible, because I did not wish to put too big a burden upon the Government. I hope that this can be done in other ways.

Mr. Skinner: It cannot be done in other ways. The hon. Gentleman has been here a long time. He knows a little about money. There are some people in the Tory Party who have said that they have to use matchsticks to calculate things. I do not have that problem and I do not believe that the hon. Gentleman has. I think he knows that if a free scheme were introduced there might be buses with more people in them. That is what I want. But it also means that the taxpayer and/or the ratepayer has to foot the bill. There is no other way round it.
I know that at General Election times lots of politicians go about giving the impression that they can bring down the moon without any expense—that they can do anything—but that is not what happens in the real world. When we talk about transferring income from one pocket to another, we have to be prepared to tell the electorate the truth, and at Budget time and rate-fixing time we have to say that people will pay a proportion as a result of the action taken.
I say quite openly that I want to see my local authority instructed to introduce a proper scheme. It will not do it otherwise. The Tories on the Derbyshire county council will not introduce a scheme unless they are told to do so.
The hon. Gentleman has made a nice point and suggested that it is all the handiwork of my hon. Friend the Minister that the Tories on the local councils are refusing to introduce some such scheme, but history shows that Labour has led the way. It has always had to be pushed—not by the hon. Gentleman and his Friends but by the likes of us on these Benches, the ones called the militants and all that. We are given all sorts of fancy names, but at heart we are moderates. It is a moderate proposal that I got into the Labour manifesto last night—free fares


for old-age pensioners and free fares for children travelling to and from school.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will say to his Right-wing colleagues on his campaign committee "Do not throw Skinner's suggestion out. Make sure it is free fares ".

Mr. R. A. McCrindle: Your suggestion?

Mr. Skinner: Yes, it was mine. There is no question about that. I am not one to go about leaking things, whispering here and there. In fact, I introduced a lot of other things as well last night.

Mr. Ridsdale: Tell us.

Mr. Skinner: Well, it is not relevant to this debate. The committee was wandering off in dribs and drabs, and I used the old system—stay till the end and get a lot of things through. I got quite a number in—the 35-hour week, free television licences and all that.
The scheme that I am discussing now is one of the things that we should be campaigning for. It will certainly do us a hell of a lot of good in the election. I do not know what the hon. Member for Harwich will do when he is faced with the commitment to free fares for old-age pensioners and for children travelling to and from school. He will have to find out then whether his policy is really the one that he wants, with his timid half-fare approach. That will take the measure of the Tory Party, the Leader of the Opposition and her right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East. They will have to decide what they will do on matters like this.
I am glad that we have had a chance to debate this matter. I think that we are honourable men who are here this morning, raising this question in the knowledge that there is no local press. To attend here and put forward this idea, knowing that it will not get reported locally, is to do a fine, sturdy job, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not do what I would not want him to do—that is, go and tell some of the black-legging Institute of Journalists people what he has been up to this morning. I believe that while the NUJ people are out we should black those others. I hope, therefore, that the hon. Gentleman will not do any scabbing by giving the story to his local press.
I am prepared to campaign inside and outside this place—inside the Labour Party machine and anywhere—to ensure that we get the free scheme through. I hope that my hon. Friend will take on board the fact that the timid approach of the hon. Member for Harwich is all right for the Tories. We expect them to do these things when an election is nigh. They will do a lot of other things. Of course, they will still complain about public expenditure. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has read Free Nation this week, because it puts forward a proposal for slashing the transport subsidies to such an extent that there would not be an old-age pensioner on a bus unless he was paying through the nose. There is a whole list of such proposals, so obviously the hon. Gentleman is not exactly in line with the people who produce that Tory magazine Free Nation, published by the National Association for Freedom.
We have made a cautious start. A Labour Government introduced the scheme in 1965 to allow local authorities to go ahead. It is now apparent that that is not good enough. We need to move a stage further on and introduce a mandatory scheme to ensure that all old-age pensioners have an opportunity to travel about a bit in their old-age—to get round to the Peak district of Derbyshire and all sorts of other places. Let us remove the anomalies. It must be wrong that pensioners in the GLC area can have such a scheme—there must be 1 million of them—and South Yorkshire pensioners and others in the large conurbations can enjoy free travel while others cannot. I hope, therefore, that my hon. Friend will move another stage forward towards fulfilling the Labour Party's next manifesto pledge—free travel for all old-age pensioners.

8.20 a.m.

Mr. R. A. McCrindle: It is always a pleasure to follow the moderate Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), and we have been particularly privileged at this early hour to discover that we are the first to hear of some of the contents of the Labour Party manifesto for the forthcoming General Election. It is also a pleasure to have confirmed that the spirit and verve with which he regales us at 3.20 p.m. has not deserted him when he chooses to address the House at 8.20 a.m.
Unlike the hon. Gentleman, I have no official responsibility for the formulation of the policy of the party I represent. Therefore, I am unable to give a definitive reaction to the various points he has made. But, that qualification having been made, I think that it would be in order if I were to say just two things.
First, it would have been interesting if the hon. Gentleman had told us what decisions the Labour Party is about to reach on the question of taxation to pay for the very desirable schemes that he outlined. Secondly, I think that perhaps it would have been fairer of him to have taken on board that there is no inherent opposition to public expenditure in the right causes, as far as I understand, among the Conservative local authorities or on the Conservative Benches in this House.
I want to place clearly on record that it is my contention that what we should be striving for is, by the proper operation of taxation and industrial policies, the creation of such wealth that we shall be able to increase Government expenditure without affecting the standard of living of the ordinary man, and it is to that end that I shall be addressing myself at the forthcoming General Election.
The hon. Gentleman has indicated that it is only because of the onset of the forthcoming General Election that the Conservatives are turning their attention to matters such as this. I would like to put him right so far as I am personally concerned. I have always been a supporter of a concessionary fare scheme of some sort, and I am going to take a line in this speech which, although it will endorse the approach of my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich (Mr. Ridsdale), will, I think, be altogether more radical and detail the sort of scheme which can be justified.
But before I touch on my own feelings in the matter, I point out that the obvious discrepancies between the schemes of adjacent areas, or sometimes in situations where one area has a scheme and the adjacent areas have none, are such as to create considerable irritation among old people, and in some cases positive bitterness. I would exemplify my own area in this regard.
My constituency is just over the border from the GLC area. Within it there run London Transport buses and the end of the Central line of the Underground

system. There is no point in denying that some of my elderly constituents find it difficult to understand why there should be virtually a totally free system for old people in the Greater London area whereas that situation does not apply in their area.
Before the House gels the impression that no assistance at all is given to the old-age pensioners in my area, I point out that both the Brentwood district council and the Epping Forest district council contribute a substantial amount each year to this end. Clearly, some assistance is given. But both those local councils, rightly in my opinion, have said that they do not believe they can afford the free system of the GLC area because they have a duty to balance the interests of the old people on the one hand against the interests of the general body of ratepayers on the other. I contend that one cannot take the extreme line that the hon. Member for Bolsover has been taking and at the same time wonder why there is an upsurge of reaction by the general ratepayer against the resultant impost on the local rates.
I hope that in singling out my two local authorities the House will accept that it is simply not true that Conservative local authorities have turned their faces against a concessionary scheme. That the more generous schemes appear to come from Labour local authorities I do not for the moment contest, but I believe that if I concede that point the hon. Member for Bolsover is in duty bound to concede in return that there has then to be an answer from the Labour Party as to its attitude and reaction to the general ratepayer who, in all conscience, has to be taken into account, because I remind the hon. Gentleman that he is every bit as much a voter at the forthcoming election as is the old-age pensioner.
On the general point of the desirability of a scheme of this sort, I have always believed that mobility among old people is strongly to be encouraged. It seems to me that nothing more quickly makes an old person feel that he has ceased to be part of the daily life than if he is obliged to stay at home, if he has no contact with his family and his friends; and the rising cost of transport, rendering it difficult, if not impossible, for old


people to get around in the way that they would like, is such as to sap their independence. So I am all in favour of mobility being restored to old-age pensioners.
But leaving aside for the moment the desirability of mobility, and leaving aside the discrepancies between areas and between concessionary schemes, I should like to turn the attention of the House—and I hope that the hon. Member for Bolsover will bear with me while I do this—to ask a much more fundamental question, certainly much more fundamental than either my hon. Friend or the hon. Gentleman has posed so far. What is the rationale for having a concessionary fare scheme at all? It is easy for the hon. Gentleman to come and tell us of the desirability of having not just a concessionary scheme, but a free fare scheme, which is what I understood he was telling us.
Should we have a scheme at all? Is it the best use of public money, about which at least I am concerned if the hon. Gentleman is not? I think that in an ideal world I would minimise the number of occasions on which I would effectively tell people—old people or anyone else—how they should spend their own money. In a way, that is what we are doing. By having a concessionary fare scheme we are telling the people that the way in which we, in some paternalistic way, think they should spend their money is by going on the buses or the trains.
Having said what I have about mobility, if that is how a person wishes to spend his or her money I am totally in favour. But I ask a few questions which seem to have been overlooked in the onrush towards a concessionary scheme or, if we are to believe the hon. Gentleman, towards a free scheme. What does this do for the housebound? What does this do for the person who is either unable to travel or has no wish to travel? What does this do for the person who would prefer to spend in a totally different way any extra money the Government can dispense? I believe that those are questions which have as yet not been answered, and they are fundamental to a consideration of a concessionary scheme for elderly people.
What is the answer? I believe that it is twofold. If we are to have a con-

cessionary fare scheme, there is a case for its being equalised throughout the country. I agree that a better way than the present system would be to feed resources through county councils, but there is a case for a reappraisal of Government policy so that the Department of Transport can administer the scheme. However, that is on the assumption that we believe that there should be a concessionary fare scheme. If I can persuade the House to cast aside the enormous difficulty of reversing the trend towards concessionary schemes and consider whether they are the best way to help, an alternative approach may emerge in the shape of an annual, indexed addition to the old-age pension intimated at the same time as the annual increase is now intimated, anyway, and paid to every pensioner, though it would remain a clear and separate amount.
The justification for that allowance would be that the old person who wished to travel would no longer have to be seen to be travelling on a concessionary basis but would be paying his full fare. Equally, the allowance would be given to the old person who was incapable of travelling or did not wish to travel. I recognise that it is late in the day to suggest that we should have such a fundamental reconsideration of the subject, but I believe that it would be a fairer scheme and, if we are thinking about its acceptability to the voters, there is something to be said for a reversal of the whole approach towards concessionary fare schemes.
I have always believed that there should be a partnership between central and local government and I wish to minimise the number of local affairs over which central Government Departments have jurisdiction. If we are to have a concessionary fare scheme, there is an argument for administering it through a local authority, rather than through a central fund, but, because of the difficulty that that has presented so far and because of the widespread variations, I think that, although consideration should be given to the county council being the administering authority, there is an argument that the Department of Transport should administer a centralised scheme.
We are dealing with a new phenomenon when we talk about concessionary allowances for this and that. It concerns me,


because if we move on from concessionary fares to concessionary television licences —and the hon. Member for Bolsover said that that would be part of the approach for the Labour Party—how far will we go? We could reach the stage where almost all of an individual's expenditure was being decided for him by central Government and the freedom to decide how to dispense one's own earnings would be almost totally eroded.
That is the heart of this useful debate. Great care needs to be exercised in this difficult matter, but the bitterness and frustration to which I referred are sufficient to justify the Government carrying out a basic review of the methods by which concessionary fare schemes are operated. The Government should consider whether a national supplemental pension grant would be the best approach.

8.35 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. John Horam): With the permission of the House, I wish to speak again. I hope that I shall be permitted to speak a third time later. I am glad that the hon. Member for Harwich (Mr. Ridsdale) has given us the opportunity to discuss this matter again. I recognise his long-standing interest in concessionary fares.
It is important that the message is conveyed. Many district councils operate good concessionary fare schemes. Some provide totally free transport to concessionaires during the off-peak periods. They are as sympathetic as we could wish about the special problems of the blind and disabled. Many schemes are long-standing. Those districts which run their own bus services were the pioneers in this matter. They were all Labour-controlled. The opportunity to take action was given by a Labour Government. Therefore, the Labour Party can claim to have a distinctive and pioneering approach.
Some progress has been made by councils with poor schemes or with no such schemes, particularly since the beginning of the year when we took another initiative by putting out a circular advocating a half-fare approach as the minimum. Since then at least 14 districts have introduced new schemes, three have firm plans and others are considering schemes.
Many authorities with existing schemes have increased the value of the conces-

sions. But there are still many glaring gaps. There are still 45 councils which have no concessionary fare schemes. All of those councils are Conservative or independently controlled.
In many parts of the country neighbouring councils operate different schemes. In some cases eligibility is tightly restricted so that only the very elderly—perhaps the over-70s—-or those receiving supplementary benefit have the concession. Other councils have steep annual charges which reduce the value of the concessions and effectively prevent many people from enjoying the concessions which are available nominally.
In the shire counties only 31 per cent. of pensioners live in areas which operate half-fare schemes. About 56 per cent. pay more than half-fare and 13 per cent. pay the full fare. We are aware of the deep concern felt by many hon. Members about these anomalies and inequities. We share that concern, as my right hon. Friend made clear on 29th November.
We wish to see every local authority providing at least half fares for everyone of pensionable age. We expect this standard to be implemented as a national minimum without qualification. There should be no complicated red tape about eligibility. There should be no charge which materially detracts from the value of the concession. Where tokens are used, we expect them to be increased in value with the rise in bus fares.
We also want councils to grant all-day half fares to blind and disabled people since they might be in regular work. We urge councils to deal sympathetically with the special problems of blind and disabled people—for example, invalid chairs and guide dogs should be carried free of charge. That is the national approach which we have advocated.
The Government have backed their words with resources. Last year we provided for the resources for concessionary fares to be increased by £31 million per annum by the year after next. We were and are prepared to give rate support grant towards that increase. However, spending so far has risen by only £8 million per annum. Therefore, more than £20 million per annum remains to be taken up.
I am familiar with the general argument that money in the RSG settlement cannot be related to the cost to local authorities of providing particular concessions. I accept that there are differences in rateable values between districts. The hon. Gentleman was accurate when he advanced that argument. However, I do not believe that that detracts from the force of the argument that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I have put forward. We must consider other offsetting factors. For example, the formula by which the RSG is distributed takes account of the available rateable resources in each district.
In the RSG settlement that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment has recently announced, my right hon. Friend has agreed that the needs element should be distributed among district councils. That will give them a further chance to achieve an equitable distribution of resources.
Some district councils have a higher rateable return than others but by the same token some schemes will cost more than others. In the areas that the hon. Gentleman is talking about, bus services are less freely available than in the Greater London Council area or on Tyneside. Therefore, the scheme would cost less. There would be less money to pay for it, but the scheme would cost less. The inequity in the distribution of resources is not the problem that the hon. Member suggested. The RSG system is the same for everybody, rich and poor areas alike. Many district councils have schemes and many do not. For all these reasons, I take the view that in the final analysis it is a matter of political will whether councils have schemes given the standardised approach of the RSG.

Mr. Ridsdale: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that the half-fare scheme in the Tendring district would cost about £500,000, which is a third of the transport supplementary grant that is given for the whole of Essex, and would be a 5p charge on the rates?

Mr. Horam: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman's facts are correct. However, he said that we should consider transferring the cost of the organisation of schemes from the district councils to the

county councils. The hon. Gentleman says that if we cannot do that we should go further as a last resort, although he is reluctant to increase public expenditure, and that the Government should step in. The latter proposition would certainly mean higher public expenditure. It is plain that there is no way in which the Government could step in without increasing public expenditure. Even if we went to the county council as a half-way stage, we would still be increasing the amount that the Government had to contribute.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the transport supplementary grant. It is paid at 70 per cent., whereas the rate support grant is paid at 61 per cent. or 62 per cent. Therefore, the Government are putting in more resources. Whichever way we try to get round the problem that the hon. Gentleman is centring upon—namely, that there are some district councils with a low rateable value—the result at the end of the day will be that somebody will pick up more of the bill. That must mean an increase in public expenditure. If we attack the problem in the way that the hon. Gentleman suggests, that should not be burked by the Opposition.
Opposition Members have expressed their strong feeling on concessionary fares. The hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) and the hon. Gentleman have initiated debates on the subject previously. Equally, Opposition Members should not be allowed to escape from the fact that there will be some increase in public expenditure. That is not consistent with the approach that they have been suggesting nationally of restraint on expenditure in all areas.
A concessionary fare scheme is a good social policy. Obviously it helps the elderly, the blind and the disabled to make essential journeys at a lower cost. It adds to the resources that are available to them. They are the most disadvantaged groups in our society. They would be able to make more trips for pleasure as well as for essential purposes. It would add incalculably, as the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. McCrindle) said, to the variety and interest of their daily lives. One of the great losses of advancing age is greater immobility.
This scheme is also an economical way to help people. The hon. Member for


Brentwood and Ongar referred to the ideal solution of increasing pensions to such an extent that these fringe benefits could be done away with. However, if one allows people to travel for half fare on the buses, one is utilising a resource which would not otherwise be used. This is an economical way of giving people something that they need. Also, it gives them more mobility than they would get from a straight increase in the old-age pension. The Conservatives should think about this, because they are very conscious of the economical approach.
Also, such a policy makes good transport sense. One of the big problems with transport is "peaking" in the morning and evening. If one fills public transport in the intervening period with concessionary fares, it will even out the peaks and make transport much more viable.
For these reasons, there is everything to be said for a consistent approach to concessionary fares: it makes good sense from every angle. But there are incredible differences between schemes in some areas where they are free, and involve areas where they are poor, and involve high-cost tokens. There are also 45 districts where there are no schemes at all. This causes concern to all hon. Members and to the Secretary of State. That is why, in dealing with this issue at Question Time on 29th November, he said:
 I am looking at the possibility of some form of national concessionary fares scheme."— [Official Report, 29th November 1978; Vol. 959, c. 426.]
We shall look at this extremely carefully.
It is not just the diversity or lack of schemes that causes difficulties; it is the problem of transferability. It should be possible for pensioners to visit their children and grandchildren and obtain the same benefits as they receive in their own localities. We need to take account of that aspect. We shall also consider the strong feeling for a national scheme. I am proud that it has always been the Labour Party that has taken the initiatives in this area. We shall have consultations and time for careful thought.
In the meantime, while looking at the possibility of a national concessionary fare scheme, it is right for us to continue to ask the district councils with no schemes or poor schemes to make good

that inadequacy. We cannot wave a magic wand and do things overnight. District councils without a scheme should stop dithering and put in a plan. The resources are available, and I do not believe that they can claim to be in poverty.

HARRIER AIRCRAFT (SALE TO CHINA)

8.49 a.m.

Mr. Robert Adley: The phrase that the Under-Secretary of State for Transport has just used—"stop dithering"—would seem an excellent text with which to begin my contribution to the debate. I apologise for raising the subject at this unusual hour, and I am grateful to the Minister for being here to answer. I hope that, as the debate has not come on until now, he has been able to get a little sleep in the intervening hours.
However, I do not apologise for raising the substance of the matter. I hope that the Minister has grabbed a copy of Hansard for 19th December 1975, in which he will see that I raised this subject on the Adjournment debate. That is almost three years ago to the day. In fact, it is now five years since I first took an interest not only in the subject of selling Harriers to China but in prodding Her Majesty's Government into making up their minds to get on with this important decision. It was, indeed, to a Conservative Government that I first went. This gives, I think, a little credibility to my claim for consistency on this subject, to which the Foreign Secretary kindly referred at Question Time the other day.
I hope that the Minister of State, when he replies, will make as agreeable a speech as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stockton (Mr. Rodgers), the present Secretary of State for Transport, did when he replied to my Adjournment debate three years ago. I hope also that, as a result of what has happened in the last three years, a lot of th hypothetical questions which I was then told I was asking can now be seen to be anything but hypothetical.
May I state first of all, Mr. Speaker, a number of simple facts? The Harrier is a unique defensive aircraft. China is not an enemy of the United Kingdom or


of NATO. The sale of the Harrier would be good for employment in this country and good for our balance of payments. The question therefore arises, why are we dithering?
There are commercial arguments, there are strategic arguments, there are political arguments and there are practical arguments in favour of taking this course of action, but I presume that it is right that we should examine all four aspects, which I propose to do as briefly as I can.
I shall deal with the practical argument first. In the Adjournment debate to which I have referred, the then Minister of State for Defence, in answering my question as to why the Government would not pursue as quickly as possible negotiations for the sale of Harriers to the Chinese, said to me:
 The question is at what stage this interest can be considered sufficiently firm as to justify the Government taking it seriously.
I hope it is accepted by all concerned that the Chinese have left Her Majesty's Government in no doubt whatever that they are ready to enter serious discussions at the earliest opportunity. I should be grateful if the Minister of State would confirm that when he replies to the debate.
With regard to the commercial argument, as I understand it the Government's attitude now is that they appreciate the commercial advantages of selling the Harrier to the Chinese but they want to delay the sale until they have achieved further commercial sales of non-military equipment to the Government of the People's Republic of China. In other words, they are using the Harrier as a carrot dangled in front of the Chinese in order to induce other purchases.
As someone who has in his past career been a director of the export division of a major British company and has had commercial dealings with people all over the world, I am bound to say to the Government that I find this a most unattractive way of trying to do business with the Chinese Government. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it is insulting, unbusinesslike and unwise. It is insulting particularly to the Chinese because it shows that Her Majesty's Government do not trust them. It is saying that we will not let the Chinese have the

aeroplanes until they have done this, that or the other. With respect, that is no way to build up a lasting commercial relationship with people. It is unbusinesslike because it shows a lack of understanding of the methods of doing business with the Chinese.
It is unwise—I shall return to this in more detail later—because the Government must know, as I reminded the Prime Minister recently in a letter, that the Americans, in the guise of McDonnell Douglas, are busy building the Harrier under licence, under an agreement made by Hawker Siddeley Aviation with McDonnell Douglas. Certainly by 1982 the Americans will be in a position to sell the advanced Harrier to anybody to whom they want to sell it. There is, therefore, considerable unwisdom in allowing this situation to fester on indefinitely. That is the commercial aspect.
Again, the Minister will tell me if I am wrong, but the sale of the Harrier to the Chinese would be a question of selling aircraft each one of which is valued in excess of £3 million. As I understand it, the initial interest is in an order of 90 aircraft, with up to 350 being considered in the future. But, whatever the figures, and there is probably not much point in discussing this at great length, a large sum of money could be earned by this country from exports. I do not need to point out that we are talking about sales accruing to the nationalised air corporation.
I finish my comments on the commercial side by putting one thought to the House. What do hon. Members imagine would be the attitude of the French Government to this question if they were the manufacturers of the Harrier? Do we really think that they would have been dithering around in the way that our Government have been during the last few years?
I now turn to the strategic aspects of the argument. Again, I call in aid the comments of the then Minister of State in 1975. I cannot do better than take as my text the comments which he made when I raised with him the question of advanced technological sales to China. He said:
 we are prepared to consider requests for advanced technology from the Chinese as


sympathetically as possible and that we are willing to meet them in the same positive spirit, provided this can be done in a way that is consistent with our own security interests and our obligations to our allies.
Those comments were made by the Minister in the light of the fact that we had just sold them the Spey engine. It is perhaps worth repeating, especially when one is discussing the strategic aspects of this subject, that the Harrier is a defensive, close-support aircraft with an operational range of 100 to 200 miles. Flying in a straight line it could probably manage about 1,000 miles, whereas the distance from Peking to London is 5,073 statute miles.
I merely say these things in case anyone should ever suggest that there is a possibility that the Chinese might suddenly turn round and want to use the Harrier against NATO or Britain. The Harrier's range ensures that there is no possible NATO threat in regard to the use of the Harrier, whatever political upheavals might occur on the other side of the world.
I think that the root of the Government's indecision and unwillingness to come to a conclusion lies in something which happened 28 years ago—the establishment of COCOM, the committee of the Western allies which discussses what strategic items should or should not be sold to certain countries. The COCOM list compiled in 1950 still seems to me to be the "bible" by which the Government are deciding whether to proceed.
Perhaps it is worth reminding ourselves of the 12 countries on that COCOM list. They are Albania, Bulgaria, China, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, North Korea, North Vietnam, Poland, Romania, Tibet and the Soviet Union. It does not take much working out to see which of those countries are members of the Warsaw Pact. It also does not take much working out to realise that the world has changed very substantially since 1950, and. not least, China herself has changed in attitude, atmosphere and international standing.
The one thing which the Chinese are trying to avoid doing is becoming social imperialists. They are desperately trying to avoid making the mistakes which they believe the Soviet Union made in its postrevolutionary development. Therefore, if

China is to develop in the way in which the Government and people of that country wish to develop, she will need to be understood and assisted by the countries in the West and by the people in the Western countries, who take an interest in Chinese affairs.
The one thing that we should understand is that if the Chinese are to develop freely their own society in their own way, they will need an ability to defend themselves against the only real threat, and that is the threat which they face constantly from the Soviet Union. Therefore, the strategic argument seems to be very strong indeed, not in favour of doing nothing but in favour of doing something positive.
Although I did so in the Adjournment debate in 1975, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Blaker) knows, I make no apology for again quoting the late Mao Tse-tung when he said:
 My enemy's enemy is my friend.
I therefore believe that the strategic argument in favour of selling these aircraft to the Chinese is enormously strong.
I turn to the question of the Brezhnev letter. It was reported that Mr. Brezhnev had written to the Prime Minister that the Soviet Union would consider this sale an unfriendly act. The Prime Minister has refused to publish the correspondence, but the reports would have been refuted if they were wrong. It is monstrous that the USSR, this military mogul, with the largest forces that the world has ever seen, should say that that would be an aggressive act and perhaps sufficient provocation for his country to declare war on China. That is brazenly typical of the Soviet Union, behaving as the international bully. I hope that the Government will have none of it and will tell the Soviet Union that, whatever our changed role recently, British foreign policy is still made in Whitehall and not in the corridors of the Kremlin.
The political position of the United States should also be considered. Last week, Mr. Carter warned that the sale might affect SALT. A few years ago, in COCOM, the Americans opposed it on the slightly far-fetched grounds that China might supply the aircraft to North Korea, which might use them against South Korea.
But there would be a more significant reason for the unhelpfulness of the Americans. That is McDonnell Douglas. I said in the 1975 debate that in seven or eight years that company would be able to sell Harriers to China if we did not. Now the period is two or three years. The Minister of State said on that occasion:
I do not deny that sometimes there may be a place for the hon. Gentleman's declared cynicism in this respect."—[Official Report, 19th December 1975; Vol. 902, c. 2028–31.]
So this is not a figment of my imagination. Like the French, the Americans pursue their interests more rigorously than we pursue ours.
The final political consideration is the role of our NATO allies. The Government have said recently that they are consulting our allies. I have not been able to discover which allies they mean. From my private contacts, I know of no NATO member which has expressed reservations about this. Perhaps we should have specific information rather than general allegations. Which of our allies have been consulted and which, if any, have expressed reservations?
The then Minister of State, now Secretary of State for Transport, quoted in December 1975 an interesting article which had been written in the New York Times, and which I now quote back at the Minister:
 For China, the chief factor is seeking better relations with the United States, West Europe and Japan undoubtedly was the need for political support to counterbalance the Soviet threat. But it is now clear that a second reason for Peking's rapprochement with the West was to gain access to modern military equipment. This is a factor that many actually promote stability in the delicate triangular Soviet-Chinese-Western balance.
The Minister of State immediately said at that time he would not necessarily dissent from that. Nor would I. I hope that the Minister of State would not wish to depart from anything that his right hon. Friend said three years ago.
What I was informed three years ago was a theoretical interest has now become a positive interest. I am asking the Government to assert the independence of our foreign policy, to make sure that within reason we will not do anything that will genuinely upset any of our allies, but to confirm that we are not prepared to allow our foreign policy to be dictated

by the Soviet Union. Let us stop being wet.
I finish with eight straightforward questions. Will the Minister of State confirm that the Chinese have now formally expressed interest in the Harrier? Will he confirm that the Soviet Union has objected to this sale? Will he confirm that the People's Republic of China is not considered an enemy of this country? Will he confirm that the sale of the Harrier would he a boost to the British aerospace industry? Will he confirm that the Harrier is a defensive aircraft? Will he confirm that McDonnell Douglas is producing the Harrier under licence? Will he tell us which of our allies he has consulted? Will he please tell us what on earth we are waiting for?

9.2 a.m.

Mr. Roderick MacFarquhar: I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley), not just on his longevity in this affair but on getting the matter debated on this occasion. It is clear that it is reaching a crucial stage after many years.
I shall take the hon. Gentleman up briefly on the way he began his remarks, when he very cleverly carried on at the point at which the previous speech had just ended and spoke about governmental dithering. There are questions to be asked about the speed at which British Governments have handled this matter. But we must also bear in mind that the Chinese have to some extent been coy. Both sides have been shadow boxing. The Chinese have not wanted to ask, for fear of rebuff. On the other hand, the British Government were not going to get themselves into a lather, consult their allies, and get the industry excited, only to find that the Chinese had decided to buy some other aircraft or did not want to buy weapons from the West.
Therefore, one has to be balanced in this matter. The Chinese have been coy. I have told them that on occasions. It will be very useful if the Minister of State will confirm that on his recent visit the Chinese Vice-Premier made a formal request for Harriers.
Three main questions remain to be dealt with. First, should we sell Harriers to the Chinese? The hon. Member has referred to the enormous changes that have taken place in China's attitude


towards the world in general and the West in particular in the 20 years or so since we were fighting Chinese troops in Korea. It is important to emphasise that there has been a change, and by no stretch of the imagination can we consider China to be an enemy.
There are two major reasons for saying that we should sell arms to China. The first is the question of the trade implications. The figure I have seen bandied around may be no more accurate than that given by the hon. Member for Christchurch and Lymington. That figure is about 70 aircraft, which at £3·5 million each adds up to about £250 million in the first tranche.
The question then arises: what further trade shall we do with this aircraft? The generally accepted wisdom is that the Chinese would then want to manufacture under licence. That may pose some problems for our allies, to which matter I should like to return shortly. But, quite clearly, we have the possibility here of several hundreds of millions of pounds of business, and that is just not something that the Government of this county, whatever their political complexion, can lightly turn down.
I come secondly to the global implications—or "strategic-political" implications as the hon. Member called them. I would argue that the dispute between China and the Soviet Union is the greatest windfall that has occurred to the West since the foundation of the People's Republic of China in 1949. That event in 1949 seemed to suggest to what is now called the Third World that the tide of Communism was moving irresistibly forward. Another 600 million people had been added to the Communist banner, and it seemed that nothing could stop the relentless advance. There were uprisings in various places in Asia, and it seemed that it was "China today and other parts of Asia tomorrow ".
As a result of the Sino-Soviet dispute, the whole political status of the Communist world has changed. It has become apparent to the rest of the world that Communism can be divided into two like anything else and that, rather than being one irresistible tide, there are two great nations, the Soviet Union and China, which have very divergent policies. They may call some of the things that they do

by the same names, but actually they are very different. In terms of State-to-State relationships, there can probably be no greater hostility in the world today than that between China and Russia.
I do not think that anyone in this Chamber would want actively to connive at any hostilities between China and Russia. That could do no good to anyone. What I think we can say legitimately, however, is that this political advantage, in so far as we are able to effect it—I shall come to that shortly—should not be lightly thrown away. It is surely in our interests in the West to encourage China in a stance which represents friendship with the West and represents a divergence from the Soviet Union and thus an ending of the myth of Communist invincibility.
I remind the Minister that China will not maintain that stance without some slight encouragement from the West. Looking back at the 1930s,' there can be no question but that the Soviet Union was looking to the West for support in its expected struggle with Nazi Germany. The Russians proclaimed at that time that peace was indivisible. There is also no question but that the West responded very badly to those initiatives because of its suspicions of the Soviet Union. As a result of that suspicion and that restraint on the part of the West, what happened was that the Russians eventually decided to cut their losses and make their peace with Nazi Germany.
One can stretch parallels too far, but I would suggest that there is a possibility that, if China were to decide that the West had no real interest in dealing with it and was not able to stand up for itself against the Soviet Union, China might also decide that it had to cut its losses and that, while not going back to the old alliance that it once had with the Soviet Union, it would at least make its peace with Moscow. That would mean the throwing away of this immense diplomatic advantage about which I have just been talking.
I would add that China's foreign policy, of course, will not be dictated by London, or Washington, or Paris, or Bonn. What we can do is to have an effect upon the decisions that the Chinese make.
Referring back to the origins of the Sino-Soviet dispute, we see that Western


policy can have a tremendous effect on relations between Russia and China. In 1959–60, when that dispute first emerged into the open, the West blunderingly, not knowing what it was doing, by applying different policies towards Russia and China, caused great unhappiness in Peking because of the Russians' attitude towards America. As a result, the Chinese began to rethink their attitude towards Moscow. The Americans, under the leadership of President Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles, were antagonistic towards China but were beginning to show an opening towards Russia. When Russia began to move towards that opening, the Chinese felt that they had been betrayed. That feeling of betrayal started the Chinese to rethink their position, and that led to their extraordinary reversal in attitude towards the West which we have recently seen. Western policy can affect Chinese policy. Therefore, it is essential that we encourage China in its more hopeful stance towards the West.
What attitude should we take towards the Soviet Union? The Government are keen to support a policy of detente towards Russia. We should not use the sale of weapons to China as a provocative "China card ". While we are not going to seek friendship with China because she is Russia's enemy, equally we should not eschew friendship with China because she is Russia's enemy.
I agree with the hon. Member for Christchurch and Lymington that British policy cannot be dictated from Moscow. I beileve that Mr. Brezhnev was ill-advised by his British experts when he sent his letter to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. If it contains the wording which leaks in the press have suggested, no British Government would be likely to fall in with the threat. Indeed, they would be more inclined to do the opposite.
If we should sell Harriers to China, how should we go about it? The first thing to be said—here we return to the hon. Gentleman's argument about dithering—is that we should do it soon. One can level the charge that there has perhaps been unnecesary delay, but the more important reason is that in all their peregrinations, with many Ministers going all over the West in the past few months, the Chinese have clearly been shopping

around. They have been making many investigations, and they are about to place the orders for a vast number of contracts for industrial goods and defence equipment. If we dither now, if we are not to start looking lively and set about selling the Harriers to the Chinese now, the time may well be gone.
We should of course consult our allies. I shall be interested in the answers to the hon. Gentleman's questions about how we have been consulting them. Clearly, we must consult them. Even though the Harriers are certainly defensive, selling equipment of this type to China is not something that can be lightly undertaken.
The hon. Gentleman made some play with American opposition and suggested that in so far as it existed it was largely due to commercial considerations. I am not so sure about that. I should be more inclined to put my money on another fact that he mentioned —the worry about progress with the SALT talks. It is an open secret that there has been some division within the American Administration about whether it was a good idea for Western nations in Europe—not America, because she has said that she will not do it—to sell defensive equipment to China.
One school of thought seems to be that, if the Soviet Union is angered by this, SALT II might be irreparably damaged. My own feeling is exactly the opposite, that, while the Russians may huff and puff on this matter, greater closeness emerging between China and the West is far more likely to make the Russians decide to repair their fences with the West and therefore proceed with SALT FL rather than the other way round.
What is clear is that President Carter himself has taken a decision. I had the privilege in June of attending a conference at which he spoke, and I asked him the question directly. He has decided that we, the Europeans, may sell defensive weapons to China and that the United States has no objection in principle provided that it is consulted. I feel able to say that the President said that, because although he said it in a private meeting it was leaked to the press the next day, so I am not divulging any confidences.
However, we shall need to give the Americans an explanation on the question of the transfer of technology. There may be some concern that whilst it is


all right to sell aircraft it may not be all right to sell the technology so that the Chinese themselves can manufacture them. There is a feeling in the United States that the Harrier is a very advanced aircraft, what the Americans call "a state of the art" aircraft, and that we should be transferring a major new technology to the Chinese. That might worry the Americans.
The correct answer is to say that what is called in the jargon the "cooking" Harrier has been around for so long that the advantages that we have in being able to make it will soon be lost, that it will be not only McDonnell Douglas but others who will soon be able to make it, and that we are not really transferring anything very advanced at present.
If there is still any dissension within the American Administration on this matter, behind the President's open acceptance of the idea of European sales of defence equipment to China, our consultations must be at Prime Minister to President level so that we can clear the lines and see that there are no hiccups in the sale's going forward.
From the point of view of helping the Americans not to be embarrassed in any way domestically, it might be a good idea to consider not totally avoiding COCOM but certainly modifying the way in which we use the COCOM procedures. If there were full formal consultation on the matter, the Americans might well be embarrassed.
The hon. Gentleman did not mention Japan, the ASEAN countries, India and the South Asian countries generally. They also have an interest in what China is doing. We should consult the Japanese, who anyway are members of COCOM, India in particular, which in the past has fought China on the border, and the ASEAN countries. We do not have to regard their opinions as being as binding as those of our closest NATO allies, but they must be consulted. I am happy to say that my researches suggest that no major obstacles would be put in the way by Asian countries.
However, if we are to sell, we might want to think of certain safeguards. The Americans are worried about Formosa, but it is almost ridiculous to think that the Chinese would want to use Harriers

against Formosa. They already have aircraft which would be far more effective against it. Some people have expressed a worry that the Harrier could be used by the Chinese to provide a defensive screen for Cambodia—in other words, it might be used abroad. There are many hon. Members who would not approve of the way in which the Cambodian regime operates and the way it treats its people. The idea of the Chinese defending that regime against a possible Vietnamese attack with Harriers has caused some colleagues in the House some concern.
We have to bear one thing in mind, namely that, however reprehensible the Cambodian regime is, the Chinese have every right to support the idea of Cambodian independence of Vietnam. Having said that, there should not be any great difficulty for the Minister, or his colleagues who may eventually sign a deal with the Chinese on the Harrier, in stipulating that it should be used within Chinese frontiers.
What should we try to get out of this deal? I have mentioned some of the political and strategic advantages of it. I take issue with the hon. Member for Christchurch and Lymington, who said that it was unbusinesslike and insulting to the Chinese to say that we would not sell them Harriers unless they bought other things as well. The Chinese are very definitely in the package deal market at the moment. They are going round the Western world talking in terms of the four modernisations—agriculture, industry, science and technology and defence. It is clear that they see their deals with various countries as partaking of all those four modernisations.
With a country such as Britain, which has defensive weapsons to sell which the Chinese want to buy, I see no reason why we should not hammer out a deal which would include a large amount of industrial sales too. I welcome the reports that we are to conclude a £5 billion deal over seven years with the Chinese. The hon. Member for Christchurch and Lymington mentioned the French. I am certain that the one thing the French would do would be to insist upon a package deal. They are very good at insisting on that kind of package deal. I would certainly suggest to the British Government that we should emulate the French.


To take up another point mentioned by the hon. Member for Christchurch and Lymington, what we have to look at is the long-term effect of our relationship with the Chinese. Putting aside the question of the Sino-Soviet dispute for the moment, what is absolutely clear is that sooner or later this vigorous nation of 900 million people will become a great Power. Whether it becomes a super Power is a matter of terminology and of the meaning of the phrase "super Power" in Chinese thought. It will be a Power in commonsense terms. As it becomes a great Power in the course of the next 30, 40 or 50 years, its leaders will look back and ask "Who helped us? Who decided to stand aside from this tremendous enterprise?" I would prefer the thought that in the twenty-first century, when China emerges as one of the two or three decisive nations in the world, its leaders should be thinking that Britain, among other nations, was prepared to help at a decisive turn in Chinese development.

9.24 a.m.

Mr. Hugh Dykes: I shall intervene only briefly in the debate because it would be wrong to make a long speech at this hour when the House is keen to make rapid progress. I apologise to the House for having got the timing of the debate slightly wrong. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley) in particular will forgive me in that I missed part of his opening remarks.
I congratulate most warmly my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and Lymington on his initiative and tenacity in waiting throughout the night for this debate, enabling him to launch this theme. If I may embarrass my hon. Friend by flattering him too much, may I say that I believe that this is one of the most important subjects to be debated on the Bill? The debate provides an opportunity for the Government to show some energy and initiative in responding to the overtures being made by the People's Republic for the purchase of Harriers and to get going with some firm orders as soon as possible. That is the plea I make, along with others present in the Chamber today.
The hon. Member for Belper (Mr. Mac-Farquhar) is a great expert on China, and

the whole House listens with respect to what he says because of his detailed knowledge of that country. He was right to say at the end of his speech that the Chinese will in the future look back and say "Which were the countries prepared to be realistic and co-operative with us, entirely without any political conclusions therefrom, in our critical take-off stage of development in respect of all sorts of goods and services, and in armaments as well? "
I believe that the old-style equation regarding China as a menacing Power in the Far East has now been dispelled, to the satisfaction of most expert opinion in the West, and, therefore, that this need no longer concern us in respect of such a purchase as this. We have here a great opportunity for the country to take advantage of sales to a foreign Power, within the full ambit of security from our point of view, which will, I think, boost the production and, therefore, the productivity of the enterprises concerned with a most amazing aircraft.
One cannot too often pay tribute to the amazing qualities and scope of this unique aircraft. It is worth recalling that the United States Marines themselves prevailed upon the American Government, the most difficult possible customer for purchases of foreign armaments and aircraft, to make their own purchases of Harriers. Of course, while we should have liked them to carry on purchasing all from this country, they are manufacturing under licence, which is a great tribute to the technology of the people concerned. It is a unique aircraft. I believe that it will remain unique for many years ahead, and it has a special role which fits in very well with the Chinese requirements, as I see them, for self-defence purposes.
That is why hon. Members throughout the House, and especially on these Opposition Benches, are impatient and anxious that these orders should materialise as soon as possible. It is understandable that it takes time to work out all the parameters and modalities of complicated overseas defence orders. That is always understood. There is always a tailoring of requirements for any purchaser overseas, especially in the case of a complicated high-technology armaments and flying system such as the Harrier.
Nevertheless, subject to all those understandable and inevitable delays—there is no criticism of the Minister on that account—we on these Benches wish the Government to proceed as fast as possible. We regret the signs of vacillation and hesitation—even slowness, which may be just part of the traditional bureaucracy of the present Government and I hope is nothing more—and we want them to proceed now as fast as possible.
I conclude with this thought which, I think, fits into the whole debate in geopolitical as well as in long-term strategic military terms. We know—this is one of the reasons why we rather like the Chinese at the moment—that the People's Republic of China is very pro-Europe. We have our own reasons for knowing why the Chinese are enthusiastic, but I think that it goes beyond that. I remember that when I made my own visit to China some years ago, in company with my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and Lymington, the Chinese took a genuine and detached interest in the development of Europe for its own sake.
Of course, they were keenest on it for obvious reasons which I need not spell out today, but they took that detached interest in how both the Community and Europe as a whole—the wider entity of Europe, the comity of Europe—were developing perhaps as one kind of grouping ". I put the word in inverted commas. That was remarkable because the Chinese in those days, although they have begun to come out into the open world now, had always been extremely introspective and not, with respect to them, very interested in much that was going on in the outside world.
That was fascinating, and I think it relates back to aircraft in general and military aircraft in particular. It is sad and chastening for us to look back over the past 10, 15 or 20 years and see the succession of lost opportunities on the European scene in aircraft development and technology, and in sales too. We have seen it with civil aircraft. I think it ludicrous that we have the competition between the TriStar and the airbus, for example. We have seen what is happening to the new generation of civil aircraft and the inevitable transatlantic tussles which are taking place, wastefully and tragically, without the necessary concerted development of a European civil aircraft.
In military aircraft, too, we are, I think, only a few years from the time when Canada will have to place a definitive order for the new all-purpose weapon to replace the existing American ones in Canada. We are only a short time from that in defence ordering terms. In the European theatre, too, we still see the need for a proper rationalisation and concerting of effort and development to give us one or a number of basic European military aircraft models. The Harrier fits deliberately and specifically into that context. There is no reason why the other European countries should not support us in the development of the Harrier on the European scene as well. If the Minister will refer to that aspect, I shall be grateful.

9.35 a.m.

Mr. James Lamond: I apologise for not being here at the beginning of the debate although I am very interested in this subject. I would like it to be known that there is at least one Labour Member who objects to the sale of the Harrier to the Chinese, and possibly there are several hon. Friends who agree with me, although I have not discussed it with them.
I agreed with many of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. MacFarquhar), in particular when he said that there is no doubt that within the next 30 or 40 years the Chinese People's Republic will emerge as probably the greatest world Power. On numbers alone, the Chinese must claim a place among the great Powers, and there is a great deal to be admired in their history, in what they have achieved, in their culture and in many other aspects of their life.
The tragedy, I believe, is that we are trying to show our friendship for the Chinese, perhaps, or to develop our trade with them, by selling them arms. I would be 100 per cent. behind the Government if we were trying to sell them socially useful goods that would be a benefit to the people of China and would strengthen our friendship with them, but I am afraid that the things we are selling them may at the end of the day not help to further our own cause of friendship with the Chinese or peace in the world.
I met the Chinese ambassador to the United Nations when I was in New York


during the recent special session of the General Assembly on disarmament. I had a talk with him about the speech that the Chinese Foreign Secretary delivered at that session. I am sure that hon. Members who are interested have read it.
That speech by the Chinese Foreign Secretary was very frightening for someone who lives in Britain, because he really said that war between the Soviet Union and the United States was inevitable. He did not go into details of the results of such a conflict, but those of us who are interested can imagine what those results would be on the economies of both countries and on our own country, where the destruction would be terrible.
I wonder whether the Government are doing the right thing—believing as they do, obviously, that there is a permanent rift between the Soviet Union and China —in encouraging the Chinese in the hope that the Soviet Union will be frightened by that, perhaps, and will be afraid to go to war. I do not believe that the Soviet Union wants war any more than we do.
Mr. Adley: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that he believes, as I do, that the essential difference between China and the Soviet Union in their policies is that the Soviet Union is holding down the peoples of Eastern Europe by force while China is trying to tread a different path? If the hon. Member accepts that proposition, will he relate it to this discussion?

Mr. Lamond: I accept that the two countries are treading different paths, but I must say that I have some reservations about what is happening in Cambodia. I do not accept the press reports about the Vietnamese invading Cambodia and about the Chinese coming to Cambodia's support. I have read reports of what happened in Cambodia after the revolution. They were appalling to read. I am sure that that feeling is shared by many other hon. Members.
I wonder how realistic it is for my hon. Friend the Member for Belper to say that we could sell Harriers to the Chinese with the reservation that they must be used only within the Chinese borders, and so on. It would be very difficult to lay down such conditions after the aircraft had been sold. In fact, I doubt whether the Chinese would accept such restrictions.
I believe that this sale of Harriers to the Chinese must set back the disarmament talks that we have been pursuing with the United States, the Soviet Union and other countries. The talks were the subject of a forceful speech by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister at the disarmament session of the United Nations to which I referred earlier. He placed great emphasis on the talks, and I fear that there will be a serious setback to them if we go ahead with this sale.

9.41 a.m.

Mr. Alan Clark: I apologise to the House for this intervention after my rather late arrival in the Chamber. The only point that I should like to make, and in so doing I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley) on the tenacity and consistency that he has shown in pressing for this sale, is that when the House approves the sale of the Harrier to China this should not be taken as general approval for a more comprehensive and continuing rearmament of China by the industries of this country and of Europe.
I say that as one who has often argued for the reduction of defence expenditure by subsidising it through sales and exports of armaments. I say it simply because, if I might adopt the phrase used by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes), in a geopolitical sense I regard this as being very much terra incognita and something that we should look at very carefully indeed.
The Harrier is a defensive weapon and its sale in limited quantities is justifiable in overall strategic terms. Indeed, it will probably be a stabilising element in the overall balance of armaments in the Far East. But already there are rumours that, for example, the possibly aborted order for the "Shir Iran" Chieftain may be diverted to the Chinese. Although the right hon. Gentleman has assured me in answer to a Parliamentary Question that these had already been paid for and therefore it is not a matter of desperation to whom they should be sold, I should nevertheless regard sales of that kind as something which the House should consider carefully.
I say that because we have to rid ourselves of the first flush of optimism about the change of direction in China and its


avowed friendship with the West and with Europe and see it in power-political and world power-political terms, and look at the same time at the nature of the regime in China. It always used to be a kind of cynical joke in the 1950s that if one were a pessimist one taught one's children Russian. but if one were a realist one taught them Chinese.
As the hon. Member for Belper (Mr. MacFarquhar) said, within 50 years the Chinese will be by far the largest and undoubtedly the most powerful country on the globe. This is much more significant to the Soviet Union than it is to us. The Russians remember their own exploits in the Great Patriotic War. They remember how, when attacked by a more militarily competent but smaller Power, they wore it down by sheer numbers and by the advantage of space. The Russians realise that if they are involved in any form of nuclear conflict they will be so weakened that they will be open to invasion or pressure along their enormously long land frontier from a country which greatly outnumbers them and which, in the long term, may well overhaul them in both military and economic terms.
That is why I feel that overtly to alter the balance of power and armaments on that Eastern frontier is a matter which should be approached delicately. Certainly, a stabilising measure is desirable, but if Western Europe is seen to be accelerating the rearmament of China, it can only be interpreted by the Soviet Union as an excuse for still further raising its own level of armament spending. We know that there are contingency plans in Soviet military circles and they may even decide to stage a pre-emptive strike against China before that process goes too far.
It must be the prime purpose of the West to reduce the overall spending on armaments by the Soviet Union because, given the nature of our two societies, the Russians can always spend more than we can.

Mr. Adley: Is not my hon. Friend pursuing the rather dangerous argument that it is in the West's interests to see that the Chinese are kept as weak as possible so that the Soviet Union does not have an excuse to rearm? The Soviet Union does not need excuses to do

anything. It will do what the hell it wants.

Mr. Clark: My hon. Friend has expresed in rather simplistic terms the argument that I have tried to moderate. It is in our interests to help the Chinese to maintain a balance, and the sale of defensive equipment, among which the Harrier is pre-eminent, is desirable. I caution the House against approving a general rearmament of China by Western technology, because I have no doubt that the Soviet Union would regard that with great alarm and that those who argue in its councils against its innate caution in military adventurism would be encouraged, possibly, to take more serious measures and that that would lead to a still further increase in Soviet spending on armaments.
History has always shown that the greater the volume of armaments available at any one time, the more likely it is that, ultimately, they will be used. I know that these may be misrepresented as arguments of appeasement, but my record and what I have said in the House will defend me against that charge. If we show by our deeds that we intend to stage a full and progressive rearmament of China, which is a repressive, authoritarian and, in my view, only transiently friendly regime, we shall be taking serious risks with the world balance of power and doing so in possibly the most sensitive area in the world.
We have had an effective balance which has maintained peace for the past 30 years. To disturb it by a major strategic alteration of emphasis at this moment would be highly dangerous.

9.49 a.m.

Mr. Peter Blaker: I, too, wish to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley) on raising this subject and on his consistency. The debate has shown from the interventions of, for example, my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Clark) and the hon. Member for Oldham, East (Mr. Lamond) that much wider implications are involved in the sale of Harrier aircraft to China than the jobs that will be created or the benefits to our balance of payments.
I agree with the view that we should not rebuff the desire that China is showing for a closer relationship with the West. This is a promising development and it is of enormous importance. Our reaction in the West to China's overtures to us is one of the most important issues in foreign policy.
The economic implications are considerable. Let us assume that 90 aircraft are involved in the proposed purchase. That figure has been mentioned in the press. I am told that 3,000 jobs will be produced on the construction of the airframe alone. Each sector of the aerospace industry will be involved in manufacturing the various parts for those aircraft. It is probable that the relationship which we would establish with the Chinese Government would continue for up to 10 years. That relationship will be of benefit and make it more likely that we sell other goods to the Chinese.
It is possible that we shall license the Chinese to manufacture further Harrier aircraft themselves. That would help our balance of payments. It is possible that we shall be able to sell further defensive arms to the Chinese. The dangers to which my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton referred are remote at present. I see no harm, only advantage, in the sale of defence weapons such as anti-tank missiles to the Chinese.
The hon. Member for Oldham, East said that we should sell only socially useful goods to China. What China considers to be socially useful might not be what the hon. Member regards as socially useful. The Chinese think that the Harrier is socially useful since they regard it as necessary to preserve their independence and way of life.
Of course, the hon. Member is really talking of civilian goods. But if we were to rebuff the Chinese desire to buy the Harrier from us our prospect of selling civilian goods to China would be damaged significantly.
My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and Lymington referred to indications that the Government might try to make a package deal incorporating the Harrier and large quantities of civilian goods. The Foreign Secretary made a statement in the House on 22nd November and the Prime Minister made a statement

on 16th November which suggested that that is the Government's intention. It would be useful if the Minister of State would tell us whether that is what the Government plan to do.
I can see the merits of a package deal. Such deals are nowadays a popular way of doing business. But we should be cautious about giving the Chinese the impression that we shall sell them the Harriers only if they agree to a large package deal involving civilian goods. It might be better to be forthcoming about the Harrier deal and not to tie it to other issues. In the end we might that way sell more civilian goods.
The scope for the sale of civilian goods is large. In March this year Chairman Hua announced a large development programme. He said that the intention was for China to double its coal and steel production by 1985. He listed 120 new projects. Some of the projects are very big indeed—for example, 10 iron and steel complexes, 30 power stations, six new trunk railways, five key harbours and 10 new oil fields. These are projects of enormous importance.

Mr. Alan Clark: The Chinese are extremely short of foreign exchange and one wonders how all the orders will be paid for, especially if there is to be simultaneous over-heating, as we call it in the West, of the internal economy. It may be that they will find that the Communist system is not well suited to dealing with that problem. It may be that they will have difficulty in paying for some of the orders that they have placed and that we shall fund them ourselves.

Mr. Blaker: Inability to honour commitments has not so far been a characteristic of the Chinese. I think that my hon. Friend will agree with that. I am not an expert on the Chinese economy—it is difficult for anybody in the West to be an expert on that economy—and there must be a risk that the Chinese will over-extend themselves. That is a matter that is in their control rather than in ours. But deals are now being signed up with the Germans, the Americans and other countries. If it is true that China's foreign exchange resources and credit resources are limited, that is an argument for getting a move on with the Harrier project and with our other sales to China and not allowing delay.

Mr. James Lomond: I am interested to hear of all the possible developments within the People's Republic of China. I certainly hope that we get our share of the developments. Would the hon. Gentleman be in favour of the Prime Minister, for instance, going to Peking and negotiating an extended line of credit, perhaps extending over a number of years, at suitable rates of interest, with the Chinese Communist Government?

Mr. Blaker: I recognise what is in the back of the mind of the hon. Gentleman. He knows of my interest in the deal that the right hon. Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson) negotiated with the Soviet Union in 1975 and the criticism that I levelled at it. I am not sure whether it is best for Prime Ministers to negotiate such deals, but if such deals are to be made it is better to make them with a country that is not openly hostile to us and does not profess to be dedicated to our overthrow than with one that is so dedicated and openly says so.
My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton referred to the caveat that we must enter—namely, whether China has the resources to carry out a programme of the magnitude that I have described. Whether China is able to carry out all the enormous projects that are planned or whether it is not, it is clear that there are great opportunities to be seized by Western countries.
Under the new dispensation China has decided to modernise. It needs the West in order to do that. It cannot rely on the Soviet Union, partly for political reasons and because the Soviet Union does not have the resources or the advanced technology to meet China's needs.

Mr. Adley: If we are considering these matters in global terms, is it not important to recognise that the three trading blocs with which the Chinese see themselves negotiating are Japan, America and Europe? Should we not, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) has said, take advantage of the fact that the Chinese regard relations with Europe as a matter of great importance? Is it not right that, apart from normal trading considerations between China and America, China and Japan and China and Europe, the Chinese add to that equation their wish to im-

prove their relations with Europe specifically?

Mr. Blaker: My hon. Friend is right.
There is the opportunity to build a lasting relationship with China, which has its implications not only for our economic prospects but for our political prospects. The Chinese have a mutual interest with ourselves in the West in security. The advantages of taking a rapid decision to sell the Harrier to China are significant. I would have expected a greater display of urgency from the Government than we have seen so far. They give the impression that they are dragging their feet. I hope that the Minister of State will explain the delay when he replies
On 21st November the Secretary of State told the House that the details of the Chinese requirement had only just become known. That is true only in the most literal sense. We have been talking to China for years. Certainly the British aerospace industry has been talking to China for a long time. Therefore, there must be a pretty good knowledge of what the Chinese want.
What are the possible objections? Of course we need the consent of our allies. The impression that I get from reports of the recent NATO meetings is that our allies, or most of them, will not object. On 7th December the Daily Telegraph reported that our allies at the NATO meeting expressed reservations but not objections. The United States Secretary for Defence said that his country had no objections to the sale of defensive weapons to China. Even though there were reservations, the atmosphere was favourable. Why have the Government not pursued this matter in the past? Why are they only just exploring the reactions of our allies? They could have sounded them out long ago.
It has been reported that the United States Government are worried about the effect of the sale on the SALT negotiations. I hope that is not the case. The SALT negotiations are important, and I hope that a satisfactory agreement can be reached before long. It must be a satisfactory one, as it is possible to imagine a SALT agreement which would do harm. However, it would be unwise to assume that an agreement is just around the corner. We have been told that for months,


if not years. It may be a long time still before such an agreement is concluded. If we hold up the sale until the agreement is concluded, we might lose it altogether.
It is unlikely that the Soviet Union, whatever it may say, would refuse to sign a SALT agreement simply because of the sale of Harriers to China. We are all familiar with the Russian technique of bluster and bluff in order to stop Western countries from doing anything against Soviet interests. Indeed, I agree with the hon. Member for Belper (Mr. MacFarquhar) that the Russians are on balance more likely to sign if we sell the Harrier than if we hold up the sale.
Mr. Brezhnev's letter to the Prime Minister is in the tradition of Russian bluff and bluster. It would be most undesirable if the Government were to back down on their intentions because of it. The effect would be to strengthen the voices of the hawks in the Kremlin. We had the example recently of the enhanced radiation weapon, commonly known as the neutron bomb, and there was a carefully orchestrated Soviet campaign against that. To my regret, the West decided not to go ahead with its production. That was an unfortunate decision to take. If we were to back down on the Harrier sale now, in face of further Russian indications of disapproval, the danger would be increased.
It is said by some that the sale of the Harrier would involve a danger to détente. This argument shows a misunderstanding of what détente means to the Russians. It is not a present by the Russians to the West. It is something of great advantage to the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union hopes, among other things, to obtain a great deal of technology and credit and grain from the West as a result of détente, and these it is indeed getting. The Russians will not put these things at risk by upsetting détente simply because of the sale by Britain of the Harrier to China.
It was implicit in what the hon. Member for Oldham, East said—

Mr. Michael Hamilton: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Are you able to explain to the House why the Government Chief Whip and Deputy Chief Whip have suddenly appeared in the House at this hour?

Mr. Deputy Speaker(Mr. Oscar Murton): The Chair has no knowledge of that at all.

Mr. Blaker: No doubt they are interested in the debate, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
It was suggested by the hon. Member for Oldham, East that the Russians might genuinely be afraid militarily if we were to sell the Harrier to China. I cannot imagine that they have any legitimate reason for fear. The Russians have over 40 divisions on the frontier with China. The imbalance in favour of the Soviet Union on that frontier is enormous. This is also relevant to what my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton said. We have a very long way to go before there is a danger of any capacity on the part of the Chinese to launch an attack against the Soviet Union.
The Harrier, as other hon. Members have said, is a defensive weapon. It has a short range and it is slow, but the Harrier happens to be particularly suitable for China with its lack of airfields and with the Harrier's capacity for an anti-tank role, its capacity for a spotting role, and its value in a guerrilla warfare role.
Another fear is that the West will build up China economically and militarily and that China in the end will turn out to be a danger to the West, although perhaps not until the next century. Here I agree with the hon. Member for Belper that when China has built itself up—it will certainly do this, whether we sell Harriers or not and whether we help to modernise China or not—it will be better from our own point of view if China regards Britain, and, indeed, Western Europe, as one of the areas which have helped it to achieve its modernisation than if we appear to have rebuffed its efforts.
I hope that, if there are still objections from our allies, the Government will do their best energetically and urgently to dispel them. I regard the COCOM system as a valuable system. I hope that the Government will not do anything to destroy it. But I think that a very strong case exists for treating China differently from the Soviet Union inside COCOM.
I believe that the Harrier deal has become the touchstone of our relations with China. The Chinese have made it clear that they wish to have the Harrier. If we sell it to them, much will follow


to our advantage, both economically and politically. If we reject their desire to have it, the consequences will be bad, both economically and politically. For one thing, the Chinese will not readily accept such a loss of face and, after all, they were the people who invented the concept of the loss of face. I hope that the Government will put themselves in a position to take a decision to sell the Harrier, and to sell it soon.

10.9 a.m.

The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Dr. John Gilbert): I congratulate the hon. Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley) on raising this subject this morning, not only because of his own well-known and long-held interest in the matter but because it gives me the opportunity to put the question of the possible sale of Harrier aircraft to China in its proper context.
In recent months there has been a tendency for the Harrier issue to assume a disproportionate significance in our overall relations with China, and this has been reflected both in the press and from time to time in the questions asked in this House. While this interest reflects the undoubted importance of the issues which are raised by the prospect of such a sale, it tends to obscure the fact that the revival of active Chinese interest in the Harrier has taken place in parallel with, and, indeed, is closely connected with, the deepening of our relationship with the People's Republic over a whole range of areas in recent months.
Of course, hon. Members will be aware that it is the Government's policy, as it has been of all previous Governments, not to discuss the details of individual sales or potential sales of military equipment. There is nothing sinister or new about this. The negotiations which take place between a foreign Government and a British defence equipment supplier are, quite properly, a matter of commercial confidentiality between the parties involved. This is equally the case with the possible sale of Harriers to China as it is with other potential sales to China or, indeed, to any potential customer. I therefore wish to make it clear at the outset that I am not able to discuss the details of the proposed Harrier deal or of the progress of the negotiations.
The Government are naturally well aware that China's modernisation programme includes defence, and we have made it clear that we are prepared to help the Chinese in this area, as in her other three modernisation programmes which have been mentioned in the debate. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has announced that we are prepared to respond to Chinese interests in British military equipment. We take into account the usual political, strategic and economic criteria and our international obligations.
We are certainly in principle willing to supply some defensive equipment to china, but we do not wish to become solely a supplier of military equipment. We hope that the various aspects of our relationship with China—political, trade, cultural and defence—will keep in balance and that any defence sales will be part of a wider trade relationship.
Our general policy on defence sales to China applies as much to the Harrier as to any other item of military equipment in which the Chinese have displayed an interest. During Vice-Premier Wang Chen's recent visit to the United Kingdom, he gave us much clearer and more precise information about the Chinese interest in the aircraft. Indeed, it was only during that visit that Chinese interest in the Harrier was confirmed.
We are carefully considering the information which Vice-Premier Wang Chen gave us against the background of our general policy, which I have already indicated. We shall reach our final decision on whether or not we can supply when we have been able properly to weigh the many issues involved.

Mr. MacFarquhar: Of course, the Government cannot take a decision until they have weighed every consideration. However, can my right hon. Friend tell the House whether they are likely finally to reach a decision within the next month or two?

Dr. Gilbert: I am always hesitant about giving deadlines to my colleagues, but I can assure my hon. Friend that there is no unnecessary procrastination on the part of the Government and that there will be a decision shortly.

Mr. Adley: Will the right hon. Gentleman amplify these outstanding considerations?

Dr. Gilbert: As I have already said, I cannot go into the details of the negotiations. I made that clear a few moments ago. The hon. Gentleman will have to possess himself with patience. Matters are moving, and the hon. Gentleman is clearly aware of that. There is no sign of discontent on the part of the Chinese in regard to the speed of the negotiations. I ask the hon. Gentleman to take that from me.
I have already mentioned our international obligations and the need for us to consult our allies. Hon. Members have mentioned the co-ordinating committee, consisting of the NATO countries less Iceland plus Japan, which monitors exports of strategic equipment to Communist countries. The United Kingdom continues to maintain its commitment to COCOM, and for this reason we are obliged to consult our allies before we sell military equipment to China. The COCOM committee keeps under review the strict criteria which govern its operation, and it is concerned to ensure that these criteria continue to reflect current political and economic realities. Reports of the supposed attitudes or actions of our NATO allies in no way affect our general approach. The attitude of the Soviet Union has also received considerable publicity.
The Government believe that it is in the interests of peace that China should contribute to the strengthening of international stability and take its proper place in international affairs. This is more likely to be achieved if the West helps China to modernise her economy and if due account is taken of her legitimate strategic interests and sovereign right to provide for her defence.
The Soviet Union has expressed its concern in an area which is of importance to itself as well as to China. The British Government understand the concern of both countries. The Prime Minister has already told the House that we do not intend to allow other countries to dictate our relations with China or anyone else.
The Government have certainly not been dragging their feet. Of course, China's interest in the Harrier has been

talked about since 1972, but it was only during the Vice-Premier's visit that we obtained enough information about the precise nature of the Chinese requirements to begin to give serious and detailed consideration to the matter. Since we received that information, we have pressed on with the necessary consultations.

Mr. MacFarquhar: Is my right hon. Friend saying that before the Vice-Premier's visit the Government did not give any consideration to this matter?

Dr. Gilbert: I am saying nothing of the sort. I am saying that one could not give the matter serious and detailed consideration until we knew the Chinese requirements, whether they had a firm interest, the numbers they were talking about and whether they envisaged buying the aircraft or licensing it. All these matters were not revealed to us until the Vice-Premier's visit. As I said, I do not know how long the consultations will take, and I do not propose to speculate. But the Government recognise the many benefits which would accrue to employment and the balance of payments from such a deal. British Aerospace is pursuing its negotiations so that if the Government's final decision is favourable no time will have been lost.
Mr. Lu Tung, the Chinese Minister at the Third Ministry of Mechanical Building, is visiting this country at the moment. One of his main interests is aerospace, and the Harrier will feature among a number of projects, military and civil, which he will be discussing with British Aerospace. The Secretary of State met him last Friday and explained the Government's position on the Harrier as on other defence sales and I believe that he hopes to meet him again before the end of his visit.
I stress again that a possible Harrier sale must be seen in perspective. We do not intend to become a supplier only of arms to China. If we supply the Harrier, and possibly other arms, it will be only as part of a wider and balanced package of increased trade across the whole spectrum of goods and services. The Harrier is not and must not be the touchstone of our relations with China. We want our new relationship to go much deeper than the sale of one aircraft.

Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Walter Harrison(Treasurer of Her Majesty's Household): rose in his place and claimed to move, that the Question be now put.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Question put, That the Question be now put:—

The House divided: Ayes 152, Noes 43.

Division No. 22]
[10.20 a.m.
AYES


Allaun, Frank
Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)
Pendry, Tom


Archer, Rt Hon Peter
George, Bruce
Perry, Ernest


Armstrong, Ernest
Graham, Ted
Phipps, Dr Colin


Ashton, Joe
Grant, George (Morpeth)
Price, C. (Lewisham W)


Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)
Grant, John (Islington C)
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)


Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)
Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Richardson, Miss Jo


Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)
Harrison, Rt Hon Walter
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Bishop, Rt Hon Edward
Hart, Rt Hon Judith
Robertson, George (Hamilton)


Boardman, H.
Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy
Rodgers, Rt Hon William (Stockton)


Booth, Rt Hon Albert
Home Robertson, John
Rooker, J. W.


Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur
Hooley, Frank
Roper, John


Bray, Dr Jeremy
Horam, John
Rowlands, Ted


Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)
Howell, Rt Hon Denis (B'ham, Sm H)
Selby, Harry


Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)
Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)
Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert


Buchanan, Richard
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)
Shore, Rt Hon Peter


Butler, Mrs Joyce (Wood Green)
Hunter, Adam
Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)


Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)
Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)
Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)


Campbell, Ian
Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)
Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)


Cant, R. B.
Janner, Greville
Skinner, Dennis


Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)
John, Brynmor
Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)


Cohen, Stanley
Johnson, James (Hull West)
Spriggs, Leslie


Coleman, Donald
Jones, Alec (Rhondda)
Stallard, A. W.


Colquhoun, Ms Maureen
Jones, Barry (East Flint)
Stewart, Rt Hon M. (Fulham)


Concannon, Rt Hon John
Judd, Frank
Stoddart, David


Conlan, Bernard
Lamond, James
Stott, Roger


Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)
Leadbitter, Ted
Strang, Gavin


Cowans, Harry
Lewis Ron (Carlisle)
Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)


Craigen, Jim (Maryhill)
Lofthouse, Geoffrey
Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)


Crawshaw, Richard
Loyden, Eddie
Thorne, Stan (Preston South)


Crowther, Stan (Rotherham)
McElhone, Frank
Tierney, Sydney


Cryer, Bob
MacFarquhar, Roderick
Tomlinson, John


Cunningham, Dr J. (Whiten)
McKay, Allen (Penistone)
Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.


Davidson, Arthur
Maclennan, Robert
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)


Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)
McNamara, Kevin
Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)


Deakins, Eric
Madden, Max
Walker, Terry (Kingswood)


Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)
Marks, Kenneth
Ward, Michael


Dormand, J. D.
Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)
Watt, Hamish


Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)
Weetch, Ken


Duffy, A. E. P.
Mason, Rt Hon Roy
White, Frank R. (Bury)


Dunnett, Jack
Maynard, Miss Joan
White, James (Pollok)


Ellis, John (Brigg amp; Scun)
Meacher, Michael
Whitlock, William


English, Michael
Millan, Rt Hon Bruce
Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)


Ennals, Rt Hon David
Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)
Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)


Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)
Morris, Rt Hon Charles R.
Williams, Sir Thomas (Warrington)


Ewing, Harry (Stirling)
Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)
Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)


Farbairn, Nicholas
Morton, George
Woodall, Alec


Flannery, Martin
Mulley, Rt Hon Frederick
Wrigglesworth, Ian


Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King
Young, David (Bolton E)


Ford, Ben
Orme, Rt Hon Stanley



Fowler, Gerald (The Wrekin)
Palmer, Arthur
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Fraser, John (Lambeth, N'w'd)
Park, George
Mr. Thomas Cox and


Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald
Pavitt, Laurie
Mr. James Tinn.




NOES


Adley, Robert
Hayhoe, Barney
Ogden, Eric


Biggs-Davison, John
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)


Blaker, Peter
James, David
Page, Richard (Workington)


Bottomley, Peter
King, Evelyn (South Dorset)
Rhodes James, R.


Brotherton, Michael
Knight, Mrs Jill
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)


Buchanan-Smith, Alick
Le Marchant, Spencer
Roberts, Wyn (Conway)


Carlisle, Mark
Madel, David
Trotter, Neville


Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)
Marshall, Michael (Arundel)
Wakeham, John


du Cann, Rt Hon Edward
Mather, Carol
Wall, Patrick


Dykes, Hugh
Mawby, Ray
Winterton, Nicholas


Fletcher, Alex (Edinburgh N)
Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin
Younger, Hon George


Goodhew, Victor
Mills, Peter



Goodlad, Alastair
Monro, Hector
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)
Mudd, David
Mr. Michael Hamilton and


Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)
Neubert, Michael
Mr. R. A. McCrindle.


Grist, Ian
Newton, Tony

Question, That the Bill be now read a Second time, put accordingly, and agreed to.

Bill read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House immediately considered in Committee pursuant to the Order of the House this day.

[Mr. OSCAR MURTON in the Chair]

Clause 1

ISSUE OUT OF THE CONSOLIDATED FUND FOR THE YEAR ENDING 31ST MARCH 1979

10.31 a.m.

Mr. Michael English: I beg to move, in page 1, line 13, leave out "may" and insert "shall ".
As I understand it, the possibility of amending the Consolidated Fund Bill in Committee is, to say the least, limited. There is a whole paragraph in "Erskine May" saying what one cannot do. I understand that this is almost the only thing that one can move.
The difference between "may" and "shall" in the United States, which derives its procedures from ours, has resulted in an Act of Congress. In the United States there is a procedure known as impoundment, whereby Congress endeavours to force the Administration to spend the money granted by Congress. In this country yet another aspect of the lack of control we impose on the Executive is that, even when we grant money to the Executive, there is no possibility of any amendment moved by any person present to discuss a particular detail of this large sum of £23,000 million that we are currenly authorising the Government to spend.
In the United States, which, I repeat, derives its procedure from us, a Democratic Congress has found that a Republican President, such as President Nixon, has not spent what he has been authorised to spend by Act of Congress.
The point of my amendment is well illustrated by happenings in recent years. It was only a year or so ago that public expenditure cuts were proposed by the Government and were argued about at great length by hon. Members on all sides

of the House, some in favour and many against. And what happened at the end of the year?
The shortfall in expenditure—unplanned and unproposed by the Treasury, and, indeed, uncontrolled by both the Treasury and the House—was much greater than the intentional reduction in public expenditure. It was over £2·2 billion. In other words, we are much weaker as a Parliament than is the American Congress, for the reason that in the United States there is the impoundment procedure which forces the Executive to spend upon projects approved by Congress.
In this country the Executive can, if it wishes, totally avoid spending sums approved by the House. Therefore, one complete aspect of parliamentary control is totally missing. At this stage we may not discuss in detail what the Government may spend the money on, and when we have passed this Bill, if it passes without my amendment, the Government may not even bother to spend the money on a particular project and may change their minds. Indeed, they may not even know what individual Departments are failing to spend.
A situation in which a Government plan expenditure cuts but find that all their expenditure plans are overwhelmed by even greater underspendings Department by Depatment, which is not known to the Treasury until the end of the year, is chaotic. Our financial procedure is in need of revision.
I am grateful to my right hon Friend the Leader of the House for his promise that the Select Committee reports on the Civic Service and procedure will be debated as soon as possible after we return from the Christmas Recess. Therefore, I hope that sooner or later we shall attempt to revise these deplorable procedures.

The Chairman (Mr. Oscar Murton): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) for giving notice of the fact that he intended to raise this matter. I wish to explain the difficulty which would arise if his amendment were accepted.
This Bill is founded on a series of resolutions, each one of which is to the


effect that a sum not exceeding—I emphasise the phrase "not exceeding "—a certain number of pounds, indeed a large number, be granted to Her Majesty. Accordingly, the total of all these sums is set out in the Bill in terms of a permitted maximum. The effect of the hon. Gentleman's proposed amendment would be to transform a maximum figure into an exact figure and would therefore, in my view, be outside the scope of the founding resolutions.
In the circumstances, I regret that I cannot propose the Question to the House in the terms which the hon. Gentleman has raised.

Mr. English: I am grateful to you, Mr. Murton, and, of course, I would not dream of challenging your ruling. Indeed, your ruling illustrates my point as to the total inadequacy of the financial procedures of the House.
You have just ruled, in effect, that our procedures prohibit both Houses of Parliament from doing what is commonly done in the United States of America derived from our procedure. You have ruled that financial control in respect of both Houses is meaningless, because it puts no control whatever on the Executive in the sense of ordering it to spend any money.

Clause I ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 2 and 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill reported without amendment.

Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 93 (Consolidated Fund Bills) and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

PENSIONS (TRANSFERABILITY)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Jim Marshall.]

10.38 a.m.

Mr. R. A. McCrindle: It is a well-known fact that an hon. Member sometimes has to wait in this Chamber a long time before the Government business is completed so that

he may have an opportunity to address the House on his topic for the Adjournment. I think I can say with some safety that on only a few occasions have hon. Members had to be somewhere in the vicinity of the Palace of Westminster for a period in excess of 20 hours. That has been my fortune, good or bad, having drawn the Adjournment debate on this day.
I raise the subject of the transferability of occupational pension scheme benefits when a person changes his occupation because I believe that it is swiftly becoming the aspect of pension schemes which is of most concern to their members and because of the sharp difference in the effect of changing employment within the public and the private sectors respectively. I shall suggest that this is an occasion when the private sector might very well be able to take a leaf out of the public sector book in an attempt to overcome the injustice which I shall seek to portray.
Recently, Money Which? was moved to say that pension schemes were penalising people who changed jobs. As I shall seek to prove, it is difficult to deny that this is so. People in private pension schemes cannot understand why they should be treated so much less generously when they reach retirement age if they have changed their job several times during their working careers. This realisation is leading people to think twice about moving jobs, and that cannot be good for the mobility of labour. I might add in passing that it does not contribute to efficient management if the principal reason why a person does not move on to another job is his fear of the consequences on his expected pension.
I am convinced that it is highly desirable that we prevent what has been called the new feudalism caused by employees being tied to their present firms for fear of the disadvantage to them if they leave.
I am aware that the Secretary of State for Social Services has asked the Occupational Pensions Board to look into the pensions problems of employees who change jobs and to make recommendations. My reason for raising this matter is that I feel that it is timely for Parliament to be among those who make recommendations to assist the board in its deliberations. First, however, I want to


underline how devastating can be the effect of no more than four changes of occupation over a 40-year period of employment.
If employee A has remained with the same company and received an initial salary of, let us say, £5,000 inflated by 5 per cent. a year to become a final salary of £35,200, his pension entitlement will be £23,466, or 40 /60ths of his income on retirement.
Employee B, who has changed his occupation on four occasions, will receive 10/60ths of his final earnings in each of his periods of employment. By comparison with the pension of £23,466 per annum of the man who stays put, employee B will receive £13,035 a year, or about 55 per cent. of the pension of employee A who remains with the same firm. It cannot be right that not much more than half a pension is paid to the second employee. The reason, in a nutshell, is that pension entitlement ceases to compound when an employment is left behind.
This seems to suggest that the case for full transferability of occupational pensions is irrefutable. It seems only fair that an employee should get two-thirds of his final salary, irrespective of how many times he has changed jobs during his working life.
Here I come to the crucial question, which is who is to pay the bill. If it is to be the company whose service the employee is leaving, that can be done only at the expense of the standard of pensions of those who remain or, alternatively, by a substantially increased contribution by both the employer and the employee. If this were to happen, the standard of the pension would go down for the employee staying on until 65 with the same firm in the interest of the man who had left presumably to better himself. So, although this appears to be a straightforward matter, on closer examination the solution is not at all simple.
I ask myself, therefore, whether there is not a compromise solution to which the Occupational Pensions Board could realistically turn its attention. With that in mind, I turn my attention to the answer which has been found in the public sector —an arrangement known affectionately as the "transfer club".
In the example which I gave earlier, if the second employee who changed jobs went through his career having only employers who were members of the "transfer club ", his pension on retirement would be the same as the employee who stayed with his original employer for 40 years. Each time that second employee changed jobs, his new employer would give him credit for his years of service with his former employer. Although this would not and could not be cost-free, the cost to one pension scheme would tend to balance out against the cost to another, on the assumption that employers both shed employees and receive them.
What I am suggesting is in the nature of a clearing house, and I am anxious that the Occupational Pensions Board should turn its attention to the practicability of this suggestion and that, at the same time, the pension interests should be turning their thoughts to the possibility of such machinery being created with minimum Government intervention rather than simply awaiting the report of the Occupational Pensions Board. If Her Majesty's Government felt that some sort of tax concession would assist in the establishment of the clearing house to which I have referred, in my judgment that would be a major step forward. I remind the Minister that he could draw on the practice of the public service if he were minded to meet my suggestion.
In case it is thought that I am singling out an an unusual set of circumstances in the example which I gave earlier of the man who changed employers on four occasions, let me conclude by exemplifying the man who stays with a company for 40 years and receives a salary of £18,000 on retirement. His pension would be £12,000 per annum. But if a colleague of his moved not four times but only once after 20 years, his pension would be £10,000 on precisely the same basis. So a change of occupation only once in a working career of 40 years, which surely is not extraordinary, penalises the person concerned in that he receives a pension which is 16½ per cent. less advantageous to him. But, whether a man changes jobs once or four times, there is no doubt that there is an argument to be answered, and I hope that the Minister will be prepared to put my suggestion of a clearing house both to the pension interests and to the Occupational Pensions


Board and in the process, I hope, contribute to a solution of this problem.
The London Evening Standard recently headed an article on this subject
 Can I take it with me when I go? 
The answer seems to be "Yes, you can, but nothing like all of it."

10.49 a.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Robert Sheldon): The hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. McCrindle) has waited a very long time for this debate, and his assiduous attendance has been noted by me amongst others.
The hon. Member is very concerned about the position of pensions in our society and, quite rightly, has devoted a fair amount of his energies to this important sphere of activity. He is concerned with the transferability of pension schemes which he concludes is becoming more and more important as pension schemes generally become more and more important. They are becoming more important because of the greater sums of money now being committed by the firms concerned and because of the individual's view of the role of pensions in our modern society. The enormous growth of pensions funds is an illustration of the role pensions play in the total remuneration of the individuals concerned.
The hon. Gentleman instanced two people with comparable careers, one who changes jobs several times and the other who stays in the same employment. He was right to point out the differences in the treatment accorded to each in the circumstances which he postulated. On the hon. Gentleman's figures, the man who remained in the same employment would receive £23,466. The second one would get much less because his pension would be insufficiently dynamised.
In this context, let us look at two kinds of employer. A man who leaves the service of employer A may be given a deferred pension, commencing at normal retirement date and calculated by reference to his 20 years' service and his remuneration at the date of leaving: or a transfer value payment from the scheme of employer A to that of employer B.

The value of that payment will almost always be equal to that of the deferred pension. The payment will be used to purchase a pension from employer B's scheme, which might be greater or less than the deferred pension would have been depending on the set-up of that scheme. As the deferred pension is calculated by reference to earnings in mid-career, it will probably appear inadequate compared with the end-of-career earnings, particularly if it has been seriously eroded by inflation in the meanwhile. That is one of the major problems.
How can the Revenue rules assist? Most of the hon. Gentleman's points were directed to the Occupational Pensions Board and therefore to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services. I should like to comment briefly on the matter, even though I am not directly concerned with those areas.
I am concerned with the Revenue rules. Firstly, under the heading of dynamism, these permit that, if a deferred pension is taken, the first employer may dynamism its amount either by reference to the increase in the cost of living during the period of deferment or at a fixed rate of increase up to 3 per cent. compound per annum. By this means, the purchasing power of the deferred pension can be completely or partly protected.
Secondly, there is the augmentation aspect which can be done by the second or subsequent employers. This is where employer B is able to augment the pension provided under his scheme. Under the Finance Acts, an occupational pension scheme is capable of approval if, amongst other things, it provides benefits in the form of pension not exceeding one-sixtieth of final remuneration for each year of service to normal retirement date.
The Inland Revenue has discretion to allow some relaxation here, and it exercises that discretion generously. Perhaps I should go into some detail, because it might be useful to know the area of discretion. The Inland Revenue will, for example, allow a pension exceeding one-sixtieth of final remuneration if the employee has more than five years' service with his final employer up to normal retirement date. It applies a scale which allows the maximum permissible benefit


of forty-sixtieths—two-thirds—of final remuneration for 10 or more years' service. The pension will be restricted by the annuity value of any lump sum benefit by a deferred pension from previous employment or the benefit provided by transfer value. The total value of these benefits must not exceed two-thirds, but it will not be reduced below one-sixtieth of final remuneration for each year of service with the employer.
The augmentation of benefits—the increase given by the second or subsequent employers—may be given in this way through the scheme whether employer A dynamised them or not. If employer A dynamised them, that would produce a result that the hon. Gentleman would be happy to see. Even if he did not, it would be open to employer B so to augment them. If the employee finds that his deferred pension, plus the benefit normally allowable in respect of his new employment, is less than the benefit he expected in monetary terms for service with his first employer to normal retirement age, and such expectation can be satisfactorily established, the Revenue will normally permit the new employer to provide further benefits to bring the aggregate in terms of purchasing power up to the former expected level, subject always to the overriding two-thirds limit.
If full advantage is taken of the Revenue's practice of relaxations, an employee retiring on his normal retirement date who has had 10 or more years' service with his final employer can be given a full pension—including the annuity value of any lump sum benefit—of two-thirds of his final remuneration. He can be given the maximum lump sum after 20 years' service. Obviously, that requires a willingness on the part of the employer to provide up to the full allowable amount.
The Inland Revenue rules permit but do not compel. The employer is under no moral or other obligation to dynamise that benefit. In these respects, the Inland Revenue rules are right. If we are to bring in any element of compulsion, which the hon. Gentleman seemed to be seeking, it would need to be done by other methods. The hon. Gentleman discussed

those other aspects. Perhaps I might deal with some of those aspects briefly. Although it is not the area of my responsibility, I think it is right to mention it.
The inadequacy outlined by the hon. Gentleman stems from two main causes —a low accrual rate of pensions in some schemes and a lack of dynamism for some deferred pensions whose purchasing power has been eroded by inflation.
The hon. Gentleman pointed out one of the ways in which this could be done and suggested this should be examined by the Occupational Pensions Board. He suggested that there should be some form of clearing house for those who move from one job to another. Indeed, he took it that in a static situation where two firms were not expanding or contracting their labour forces, the movements of individuals from one such firm to another would bring about a certain neutrality. What one would gain, the other would lose in individual instances, but over the area as a whole gains would balance losses.
The hon. Gentleman looked for some kind of clearing house which could be devised for the benefit of the individuals concerned with no great disadvantage to the firms in general. Of course, he will be aware that one obvious problem arises when firms expand their labour forces. At the pace of industrial change which we expect to see and would welcome, a number of growing firms could be adversely disadvantaged. I think that the hon. Gentleman understands the problem. He does not seek a simple solution. In fact, he said that there was no simple solution, but he felt that the whole matter should be looked at because it is of great importance. Therefore, he asked that these matters be put to the Occupational Pensions Board. I am sure that the board will note the clear way in which the hon. Gentleman put his arguments.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services has asked the Occupational Pensions Board to examine the whole problem and report back to him. Clearly, this will take some time. The hon. Gentleman, with his understanding of the complexity of these matters, would not expect it to be completed quickly. It is likely to be two or three


years before the board can complete it. The Inland Revenue will naturally wish to study the board's conclusions carefully.
The hon. Gentleman has drawn attention to an area of activity that will increase in importance with time. He has put his argument in a very restrained

way, and it needs to be looked at carefully. I am sure that it will receive the consideration due to it.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Eleven o'clock a.m.